


Survivor

by vlalekat



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Adventure, Bisexual Female Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Drunk Sex, Dubious Consent, Eventual Romance, Eventual Sex, Eventual Smut, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Mildly Dubious Consent, Minor canon divergence, Multiple Pairings, Multiple Relationships, Pregnancy, Romance, Rough Sex, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Unplanned Pregnancy, because it shouldn't be, but it's not a big deal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-08
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-08-29 22:25:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 61,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8507839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vlalekat/pseuds/vlalekat
Summary: When Alice comes to in Vault 111, she can't figure out what happened. Slowly, she starts to piece together the end of civilization and find a place in the new world around her - after she figures out what happened to her son. Along the way she makes a motley crew of friends who develop their own relationships and have their own adventures.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Bethesda and Obsidian have made something awesome. I just like to play in it.

There's a feeling of coming-to, but Alice has no idea how long it takes to become aware of her surroundings again. All she knows at first is that there's an alarm going off. Her clock? Is she supposed to be getting up to go to work?

No - her alarm clock makes a buzzing, or sometimes plays music. This is different. It isn't coming from her nightstand either, because the next thing she becomes aware of is that the alarm is all around her, surrounding her with a blaring siren. There's a woman's voice too, but she can't understand - or maybe can't process - the words.

That's when she realizes that she isn't lying supine in bed; there's no sheets or blankets to pull off, no soothing scent of laundry detergent. She's propped in a standing position with flat cushions behind her. Her eyes open, but she can't make sense of what she sees - there's frost on a small window directly in front of her face, and she's in some sort of shipping container?

She's cold, and she can't breathe. So cold, and it would be easier to just lie back and go back to sleep. She would too, except that the coughing starts. Deep, hacking coughs that start near her diaphragm and rise through her lungs like a virus from hell. She bangs her fist on the window as one cough after another tears through her throat, trying to brace herself.

If she could just get a moment without a cough, she'd be okay. She could get her bearings and figure out where she is. She could figure out what in the world is going on.

Either banging on the small frosted window has had some effect or something more is going on here, because the window begins to rise in front of her - the whole wall begins to lift away, and she falls forward, crashing out of a metal cannister to a concrete floor.

She gasps - something about the air is different now. It has weight. She can feel it going into her lungs. She gulps another lungful of air, and tries to figure out how to get her feet beneath her and stand up. Involuntarily, she shivers.

After a moment, she's calmer. Things are beginning to look familiar - a long narrow room of metal pods, all closed except the one she came from. Overhead, the warning blares.

_All vault residents must evacuate immediately._

Vault? Something niggles at a corner of her brain. Something familiar. If only -

She retches but nothing comes up. She wipes her mouth with the back of one hand and turns and that's what she sees him. Nate.

Nate, in one of these pods. Still, slumped to one side. Hair tinseled in frost.

Somehow she scrambles up, her feet finding purchase against the damp concrete. In a moment she's banging on the door of his pod, slamming her palms against the window. All she can see is the blood on his chest, the emptiness of his arms.

Where is the baby?

She turns her head from one side to the other as one memory in particular floats to the surface: a man with an angry face staring at her through the small window and the screaming of a baby in the background.

Shaun?

I takes her a moment to find the post next to the pod; she jabs a hand against the button and the door of Nate's pod swings smoothly open. Inside, he appears much the same. His body is silvery with ice crystals. His chest should rise and fall with slow breaths, but instead lies unnaturally still. The wound in his chest is red, the blood frozen into small drips around the entrance wound. Somehow it reminds her of a case she studied in law school; looking at it is overwhelming but at the same time seems no worse than the crime scene photos she'd studied through her internship.

Part of her wonders how she can see him as both her husband, mortally wounded and just another corpse, a mystery to solve. These two feelings shouldn't coexist, and yet somehow they do.

She leans forward and lays her lips on his. There's no response from him, of course. It would be foolish of her to expect anything else. Whatever else Alice Delaney may be - if she even still is Alice Delaney, and she's really not sure of that at all anymore - she's always tried to see things clearly. It served her well in school, to be able to step back and consider all angles.

But Nate could always throw her for a loop.

She glances around the long room again, at the flashing lights and the blaring siren. She shivers again; the cold is deep in her bones. She can see all the way through the doorway and down the hall, and there's not a living human to be seen.

When she turns back, Nate is still there, still alone, still dead. Still.

Carefully - probably more carefully than warranted, given his situation - she reaches out and takes his left hand in hers. Pries the plain gold band from his finger and, without taking her eyes from his face, slips it inside her bra.

It nestles against her breast, creating a circle of ice against her cold skin.

"I'll find who did this, and I'll get Shaun back. I promise." She's not sure who she's talking to anyway. It's not like he can hear her.

Slowly, dazedly, she turns and begins to look for signs of life.

 

* * *

 

The elevator descending reminds her why she was below to begin with. Something about the sound of it chugging down to her connects a dot, and suddenly she's seeing the blast again. The shockwave charging across the suburbs like a tidal wave, the fear and confusion and the sound of another woman crying. He last look at the sun before dust and riotous fall leaves blew up over their heads. She can remember the frantic run through the woods to the vault door, to telling the guard that they were "on the list," in a voice she didn't recognize.

Kissing Shaun before she climbed in the decontamination pod.

Telling him, "Mommy's here. I love you, baby."

The sweet smell of his head and his happy smile, a few teeth peeking out at her.

She stands there, staring at the floor of the elevator with the pistol she found in the overseer's office in her hand and wonders if she's ready to see what's up there.

According to the computer she found, it's been at least two hundred days since the bombs went off. Considering the skeletons she found scattered around the vault, it's probably been a lot longer; all of them were picked clean by the oversized roaches she'd dispatched with a baton in a fury of revulsion and panic.

She realizes she's breathing fast. She tries to slow her heart and immediately gives it up as pointless. Not another single living person in the vault, nothing but frozen corpses and skeletons and the smell of trapped decay.

No sign of Shaun. No sign of a vicious-looking man with a scar on his face. Not that she knew what she was looking for.

After a long moment, she steps onto the elevator and delicately presses the button to send it to the surface. Beneath her, the floor rumbles and she rocks, then regains her footing. A soothing voice careens off the rust covered walls that cycle upwards and tells her to enjoy her return to the surface.

It seems like the elevator goes up for miles - through a series of lights, then into blackness. Was it this long going down? She can't remember. Gradually, overhead, she becomes aware of a circle of light growing larger, coming closer.

It's happening too fast, now, but she realizes that she doesn't know how to stop this.

The sun dazzles her eyes, and she stands at the top of the elevator for a long time, one hand suspended over her face, squinting and trying to see through the tears that have sprung up against her better judgment. The first impression she has is that it must be winter - all around her, the trees of their wooded suburb are bare of leaves. She shivers and can't tell if it's the residual cold from the vault, or if it's because it really is winter.

More than anything she wants to go home, but she stands there panting, wondering if she has the strength to confront Sanctuary, knowing what she does now.

The big one. It really did happen.

She hears Nate's voice, again, telling her that they really should consider a game plan "just in case."

She'd scoffed at him. "They wouldn't really do that, would they? Everyone knows mutually-assured destruction is dangerous nonsense."

He'd placed his calloused hand over her own. They'd been eating breakfast. It had been a sunny morning not long before Shaun was born and the daily paper seemed progressively more alarmist. It seemed silly to argue about China when it was such a beautiful day and they had so little time left to just the two of them, and so she'd just moved his hand to her belly. Shaun, ever the pleaser, had been obliging enough to kick for his daddy.

Nate had smiled. "Perhaps you're right. But you'd be amazed what people will do when their back is against the wall."

It's this that echoes through her head as she traces her way back home. The trees are dead or dying around her, many of them lying on the ground. The underbrush seems to be done. Is this winter?

Or is it nuclear winter?

About halfway down the hill, she trips and goes flying towards the footbridge. She lands, face-first on the ground and in that moment, realizes she's crying. The world around her blurs and she moves into a sitting position, not even bothering to wipe her eyes as she sobs. There's nothing to lean against, and so she curls into a ball, hugging her dirt-caked knees to her chin, and shakes with cold and loneliness.

 

* * *

 

Finding Codsworth proves to make her feel a bit better. If she's the last person left alive, at least she'll have someone to talk to. Even if that "someone" is a moderately depressed and prissy robot butler, it's someone she actually knows and she won't be alone forever.

Less welcome is the news that she's been gone for two hundred years. More accurately, she's been in the same place, but it's the world that's been gone for more than two centuries.

Sitting by a small fire in her former carport, she tries to process this and can't. Trying to visualize the passage of time makes her dizzy, and she sticks her head between her knees for a moment to try to get her bearings again.

When she sits back up again, she sees Codsworth returning to her with a can of something and a fork. The fork is miraculously unchanged; who knew that you could leave a fork in a drawer through a nuclear blast and two hundred years and it would look the same?

The can, on the other hand, looks a bit worse for the wear. The can itself is dented and rusted, and the labels hangs in faded tatters. When Codsworth presents it to her, she takes it gingerly, wondering about botulism if she consumes whatever horror lies within. She stretches the label flush against he can and tries to make out the decrepit words, but gives up and studies the picture. Corn? Beans? She can't be sure.

"I do so hope you'll feel better once you've eaten," Codsworth fusses at her as he builds the fire up more. He'd offered to go find something called brahmin meat, but she didn't dare let him go too far - she's so unnerved, she doesn't want to be alone.

If he leaves, she might cease to exist.

"Thank you Codsworth." She means for lasting this long, but knows he doesn't understand that.

The can, when she opens it, contains something green. She can't tell if it's supposed to be green or not, but that's the color it is. She puts the fork in carefully, trying to to gag at the gelatinous texture. Finally, with a bit of it on her utensil, she ferries it to her mouth.

Peas. At least, at some point it was. Now it's pea-flavored goop. It tastes better than it looks, but chewing it is still a trial.

She swallows forcefully and feels her stomach try to revolt. With a great force of willpower, she forces it back down. Another mechanical bite, and then she sets down the can and the fork and tries to warm her hands over the fire. It feels as though she has icicles instead of fingers and she begins to wonder if she will be cold forever.

It was the ninth circle of hell that featured the frozen lake, wasn't it? She can't remember. Perhaps one of these days she can get to library and look it up.

A frantic giggle escapes her lips, and she claps a hand over her mouth before another can come out.

The library. As if such a thing still exists.

After what feels like forever, she collapses on the mildewed mattress Codsworth has dragged outside for her. It's colder out here than in the house, but she lies there a long time, staring at the stars and willing herself to stay awake.

Eventually, she loses, and her eyes close and don't open.

The dreams, when they come, are terrifying.

Dreams? No - memories.

She's back in the decontamination pod, watching as her son is taken from Nate. Asleep, her brain gives her more than it did during her panicky exploration of the vault. Now she sees the whole incident from beginning to end. She locks eyes with the monster who murdered her husband. She hears him say that at least they still have a back-up.

Over and over again, she hears herself say that they'll start a brand-new life. She hears Nate yell about how he won't hand over Shaun. She hears the muffled bang of a pistol and watches him slump back into his pod.

The dream always ends where it began: with the blast whipping over their heads.

 

* * *

 

When she wakes up again, nothing is better. Around her the world is still falling apart.

After sleeping for two hundred years, you'd think she would feel more rested, but she still feels the kind of exhaustion that sinks deep into your bones and holds you down. The kind that makes it impossible to get up and go anywhere. Lying there on the mattress, she debates going back to sleep and waiting for death.

It's the bird song that changes her mind. She can't tell which direction it's coming from, but it doesn't matter - something is alive out there.

If a bird made it, she can't be the only living creature on this god-forsaken rock. Somewhere out there has to be another person.

Somewhere out there must be Shaun.

Out of habit, she goes inside the house and to the bathroom. Codsworth has helpfully brought her a small basin of purified water; she doesn't ask where he got it from. She wets her finger and scrubs it over her teeth, trying to work off the film left last night from her aborted dinner. It's not very helpful, but at this point she feels almost anything would help.

Bracing herself, Alice looks in the mirror. She's not sure what she expected, but she actually looks pretty normal. Not like she spent two hundred years frozen at all - whatever mark something like that might leave ona person, she doesn't see it. Her cheek is creased with sleep and she washes the grime from her face, and then she looks about the way she always has. There's a tangle of blonde curls to her shoulders, thin lips, a slightly too-large nose. Her eyes, as always, seem to give too much away.

What she wouldn't give for a pair of sunglasses.

With a sigh, she turns away, running her fingers through her hair in a fruitless attempt to tame it. Unless there's some ancient makeup lying around, this is likely to be as good as it gets.

If she's going to head to Concord, she'd best get moving. Who knows how long it'll take her to walk - she's always driven before but that's not an option now, not with their Corvega a burned out husk, laying on one side.

The gun is where she left it, lying next to her abandoned mattress. She picks it up, marveling at the heft of it. She's grateful now for the time Nate had spent teaching her how to shoot and clean his guns. She checked the house the day before and they were long gone, although she can't be sure if it's because someone took them or because the blast lifted them and sent them to Maine.

Outside, the day is crisp. Somehow, even without the bright leaves, there's a fall smell to air. Codsworth seemed to think it had been exactly two-hundred and ten years, and she's still unsure about that. Still, it's undeniable: it's definitely fall.

Somewhere Codsworth has scrounged up a small satchel and some supplies for her - sealed water, a few more tins of food. A stimpak that she didn't even want to ask about. She packs the bag, shoving the extra bullets on top. The pistol she keeps in her hand as she sets out.

Her boots make a clapping sound on the cracked pavement and she stops before she reaches the bridge to scrape them against the stoop leading up to a collapsed house. She scrapes them for several minutes until the soles make no sound when she walks. Nervously, she looks at the bridge. This is it.

When she crosses it, she really will be starting a whole new life.

She passes the gun from one hand to the other, rubbing her sweaty hands against her pants. When she puts it in her right hand again, it's with a steady, certain grip.

"You'd be amazed what people do when their back is against the wall."

And so she takes the first step.

* * *

When she sees the dog, Alice stops dead in the road, blinking. She scrubs her eyes, and blinks again.

The dog is still there.

What's more incredible, is that he (she?) looks friendly. It stands in the parking lot of the fuel station, half-hidden in the shadows so she almost didn't see it. Head cocked to one side, watching her. Wagging its tail.

Wagging its tail.

She stands still for a long, long moment, unsure of what to do. It feels like only yesterday that she had a full life - husband, son - and at the same time it's been so long since she connected to anyone else.

Then she's running to the dog, and he's running to her. They both skitter to a stop about three feet apart, and she starts talking to him, overjoyed. She stuffs the pistol in her bag.

"Hey, boy," she begins, reaching down to pet his sun-warmed fur. "What are you doing out here by yourself?"

Like he's going to talk back.

And then he does: he barks once, happily. He leans into her hands as if he hasn't been rubbed in forever and she thinks of the dog she had as a girl. He'd been a beagle, smaller than this one, and louder, but still a good friend to have by her side.

She misses that dog. Has for years.

"You seem like an okay guy," she murmurs as she massages his ears. The words aren't important. The tone is.

So far, the tone of this meeting is going great.

The dog leans up and licks her cheek. His tongue is like sandpaper and his breath smells as bad as any dog's breath she's ever smelled, but he's real and he's here and damn it if that doesn't feel amazing.

She wonders why her cheeks hurt and realize it's because she's grinning.

"Okay then," she straightens, looks around. "Let's stick together."

The dog gives another happy bark. His tail starts going again. It's like he understands her, which is crazy because he's a dog.

It's crazy, but then again, she's not alone anymore.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The road to Sanctuary Hills is quiet. The sun is at eye-level, setting behind the hills; its salmon glare threatens to blind Preston as he brings up the rear of the short column of settlers. The newcomer leads the way, a narrow-shouldered blonde woman with wild eyes and an honest-to-Betsy vault suit in pristine condition on her back. Behind her is Sturges, then the Longs, and Mama Murphy just before him. Dogmeat runs back and forth between Mama Murphy and the new woman, nose to the wind, nails tapping out a rhythm as he runs.

He would have preferred to stay put, to spend the night in Concord and travel during the day, when visibility would be better. That deathclaw, though -

Mama Murphy stumbles in front of him, and automatically, Preston shoots out his free hand to steady her. Her elbow is bony, like a bird’s wing.

“Thank you, sonny.” Her voice is permanently slurred from the chems, or maybe from the bottle she keeps in her pocket, the one everyone pretends doesn’t exist.

“Of course, Mama.” He’s distracted. At the head of the line, the new woman stops behind the orange-rusted skeleton of an old Corvega. Gradually, the line moves up behind her and she peeks around. With a gesture, she signals for Preston to meet her and he does so, hesitantly.

“It’s right up the road, over the footbridge. There’s a Mr. Handy there. He answers to Codsworth.” Something flashes across her face - a regret? “He should be able to help you get set up.”

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t know.” That look again, the one that betrays some feeling Preston can’t identify. This time it lingers

“Come with us. It’s getting dark,” Preston gestures at the sun. “It’s not safe out here alone. And we could really use your help.”

The lost lamb expression fades into a wry smile. “Is it too dangerous for little ol’ me, or do you need my help?”

He laughs. “Can’t it be both?”

She glances up the road to the houses, then back the way they came and chews on her lip. “Okay,” she says finally. “But just for one night.”

 

* * *

 

 

He finds her alone, sitting by a fire, long after the settlers have gone to bed. She’s staring into it, so unaware of her surroundings that Preston somehow manages to sneak up on her, despite the fact that he does nothing to hide his presence and is actually whistling. She doesn’t seem to be aware of him until he settles on the stained mattress beside her.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he says by way of greeting. “I hate sitting on cold concrete.”

She nods. “It’s a free country.” This close, he can see the dark circles under her eyes.

“That sure is a nice vault suit you have there,” he tries again.

She looks down in surprise. Perhaps she’s forgotten she’s wearing it. “Oh, this -”

“I’ve just never seen one in such good condition before.” There’s a low thump as he sets his musket on the ground beside the mattress.

She barks out a laugh. “It should be in good shape. I’ve only had it for two days.”

This confuses him and he tells her so, and for the first time since he watched her beat that wounded deathclaw to death with a barbed baseball bat, she looks him in the eye and begins to explain. At the end of it, he’s stunned. A story like this - a family frozen for two hundred years, the husband murdered and baby stolen - it’s far-fetched but not impossible.

He’s at a loss. What do you say to something like this? His own tragedies - and there are so many of them that this time yesterday he felt he wouldn’t be able to keep putting one foot in front of the other - seem somehow smaller.

The silence feels more companionable than before. There’s the sound of the fire crackling, and quiet breathing. Somewhere, in the black beyond them, he can see the low fire of the robot as it patrols the suburbs. Above him, the stars are winking.

“So you grew up here.”

He turns back to her. “Yes.”

She looks at him, fixes him with an expression he can’t read. “Was it always this bad?”

Preston thinks for a moment before he responds. “The raiders have been pretty bad; as far back as I can remember. And the radstorms can be pretty dangerous if you get caught in one without any Rad-X. But there’s a lot of good people out here, doing good things.” Just thinking about it cheers him a little.

“I’m sorry.” The fire cracks and almost drowns out her voice.

“What for?”

She gestures. “ _This_. The world. The war.” She sighs heavily. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

His leg is going numb; he shifts in his seat. “You didn’t do it.” He raises one eyebrow in what he hopes is a sardonic smile. “Did you?”

Her laugh is the most hollow one he’s ever heard. “I sure did, Preston. Me and my husband and every other goddamn person who lived back then.” She looks down at her hands where they fidget in her lap. They’re twisting something - a blue blanket with a pattern of space ships. It’s dirty and ripped, pilled with lint, and she turns it over and over

“Don’t talk like that -” he starts but she cuts him off with an angry hiss.

“It’s _true_ . We acted like everything we did wouldn’t hurt anyone, like we were the only ones who mattered. We put ourselves first and sacrificed the rest of the world and _look what happened_.” He can see the tears glistening on her cheeks. One drops and falls into blackness.

He knows something about blaming yourself for the loss of many, and yet Preston is at a loss for words. For him the war is something that has always been, something that happened long before he was born. But for her, it’s as fresh as the massacre in Quincy.

At the sound of liquid sloshing, he looks over to see her sipping from a brown bottle. Whiskey? Probably, form the smell. Seeing him looking at her, she offers the bottle. He accepts with a nod and takes a long drink. It’s warm and burns going down, but once his throat quits screaming at him, he feels warmer inside. Safer.

“Preston” He nods again, giving her the cue to continue. “What was that...thing? In Concord?”

Again he sees her in the power armor, the barbed wire on the baseball bat glinting in the sun as she raised it over her head and brought it down on the deathclaw again. Again, and the wire grabbed at the creature’s hide, tearing off chunks that flew into the gutter. It screamed and clawed at her, but missed and the bat kept swinging.

They talk long into the night about what he’s seen in the Commonwealth. They talk about deathclaws and radstorms and the importance of having a good, reliable weapon at all times. He tells her about how to prepare food to cut down on radiation, and she tells him about life before the war. He learns enough to know it wasn’t all daisies and sunshine.

When he tells her about super mutants and the damage they can call, she swears softly and makes a crossing gesture over her chest.

At long last, he asks a question and she doesn’t answer; she’s fallen asleep sitting up, her back against the wall of the garage, her head slumped forward on her chest.

He still hasn’t learned her name.

 

* * *

 

 

For the first night in weeks, Preston doesn’t dream of Quincy. This must be a good sign; at a minimum, Sanctuary has proven to be an excellent haven for one night. If only their luck will hold, and they can finally have a place safe from Gunners and raiders and super mutants.

If only.

The next morning is a flurry of plans. Jun has discovered a melon patch behind one of the decrepit houses, and they feast on fresh fruit for breakfast. Sitting at a small patio table behind one of the houses and chewing on melon, Preston reflects on the work that needed to be done - getting here has been bad enough, but now they have to turn this collection of ramshackle houses into a home. That means starting with food, water, and guns.

A shadow steps in front of him, obscuring the view of the river.

“I’m going.” It’s Alice - he heard Codsworth greet her when she got up this morning. It’s nice to finally have a name for her.

He looks up and blinks. Instead of the vault suit, someone has scrounged up a pair of olive-green slacks and a flannel shirt for her. Atop this, she has a mismatched collection of leather armor she must have scavenged from the raiders - it’s ill-fitting and awkward-looking, but that’s better than nothing. He’s still surprised that she managed to get through the firefight and battle with the deathclaw the day before without a scratch.

“Where are you going now?”

“Mama Murphy mentioned Diamond City. She says there’s a detective there.”

“To find your boy.”

“That’s right.” She turns a little, looks over at the playground that lies in a heap partway down the hill.

“I can’t come with you.” It’s true; there’s too much to do around here to establish a new settlement, and anyway, he’s the last Minuteman.

Yesterday that scared him - today, he finds some hope in the fact that he’s still here.

She nods. “I know. I just wanted to say -” her voice cuts out and she blinks. “Good luck.”

“You too.” There should be something more for him to say. “We’ll look after the place for you.”

Alice nods. Then, with a whistle to Dogmeat, woman and dog begin down the road towards the Great Green Jewel.


	3. Chapter 3

It's hard to discern where she is exactly. Street signs have come down, piles of rubble crop up out of nowhere, and familiar landmarks are long gone or so destroyed that they are no longer recognizable. Walking instead of driving makes it difficult to tell how far she's really traveled, and there are broken-down and abandoned vehicles she keeps climbing around or threading through. The rubble, the cars and trucks, and her general disorientation make it difficult for Alice to figure out how far she's traveled towards Diamond City.

The Drumlin Diner still stands, but she found it occupied with a trader and a couple of vagrants whose threatening posture and superior firepower convinced Alice that she'd best give the place a wide berth. Still, it was somehow exhilarating to see other people and it took everything she had not to go up and hug them.

Other than the destruction, the walk towards Boston has been relatively easy and uneventful until the radio on her Pip-Boy starts talking.

_...Unit has sustained casualties and we're running low on supplies. We're requesting support or evac from our position at Cambridge Police Station…_

She stops dead in the middle of the road and stares at the chattering box on her wrist. She hadn't even realized anyone would be using a radio these days, but it does make sense. That was a military transmission. It repeats again as she stares at the Pip-Boy in wonder.

Maybe this place isn't completely misbegotten.

The road is pocked with shrapnel and she has to watch her footing, but now she's moving faster, towards the sound of the gunshots she's beginning to hear off to the east. They're faint, but growing louder as she hurries. At her side, Dogmeat sniffs the air and his nails click on the pavement.

The buildings ahead are broken and half-collapsed, but she can see a narrow alley between two of them and she darts in, lowering herself to a crouch as she draws her weapon. She breaths slowly despite her aching chest from the run to get to the police station.

It looks like she chose the right alley; suddenly, she's come out to the other side and for a moment - just one moment, but it happens nonetheless - she's back in her own time, looking at the police station for the first time on the day she started her internship with the District Attorney. When she blinks, the illusion is shattered - a man in power armor stands in the middle of the courtyard, weapon raised, and two other people in orange uniforms stand behind him, firing. There's rubble everywhere, and a surprising amount of trash, and a trashcan with a fire inside. The wall built of old tires, barbed wire, and other detritus is new as well.

A growl grabs her attention and she turns and grips the gun firmly in both hands.

The thing coming at her used to be a person - a mailman, guessing by the uniform that hangs in tatters around its wasted frame. It eyes are sunken, and what flesh it has left is stretched taut over its skeleton. The one has a large shock of red hair hanging loosely over one ear. It stumbles as it walks and for a moment she flashes back to the zombie films Nate used to love. This must be a feral ghoul; Preston told her a bit about them before she left Sanctuary Hills two days ago.

When she fires her pistol, the creature's head explodes in a mass of foul-smelling pus. It stops with one flailing arm just three feet from her face and collapses backwards into a pile on the concrete ground before her.

She looks up and there are more, nearly a dozen, and there are more growls coming from beyond the defensive wall that encloses the front of the courtyard. Nate's voice comes back to her, from one night not long after he retired from the Army, when he first started teaching her to shoot.

"Aiming for the legs can be hard, because they're small and keep moving, but it can be a good way to disable your enemy. Body shots also work, but not if they're wearing armor. Head shots are the hardest."

Alice had looked askance at him then. "When am I ever going to need to know this? You can't really think I'm going to need to _shoot_ someone, can you?"

The look on his face had said it all.

"Why did you retire then?"

He'd sighed in a world-weary way. It made her heart ache and even now she felt that pain come back. "For you. For the baby." And so she'd squared her shoulders and learned to shoot.

Taking down the ghouls isn't as difficult as she thought it would be. Though their movements are jerky and they move fast, it isn't difficult to predict where they were going. The problem is that they keep coming, one and two and three at a time, and each one of them seems to know no fear. Some of them take as many as three bullets to stop and reloading is a challenge; she has to keep moving as she does so, ducking behind and under things. By the entrance of the police station, between the bangs of weapons firing, she hears one of the orange-suited men cry out and a woman's voice scream.

Still, she keeps firing until the area around is quiet. She fires until nothing is moving but the man in the power armor to her right, who stands quietly with a bemused expression on his face. She fires until she feels the fierce warmth of Dogmeat against her thigh, and smells his dog breath wafting up to her.

Finally, when she's sure the threat is gone, she stops and lowers her gun. Looking at the piles of corpses that litter the courtyard, she suddenly feels something rising up inside her, and she turns and throws up in the alley.

* * *

He's not ungrateful for the help, but Danse can't help but wonder how someone can shoot so many ferals at once and still end up vomiting in an alley afterwards. Sure, the damn things smell bad, but it's not as if they're human.

When she's finished, she reappears from behind the stairs, wiping her mouth with a small square of white cloth. She looks more steady now than she did when she ran back there.

"We appreciate the assistance, civilian, but what's your business here?" Their team really can't support any dead weight. Not with the losses they've already sustained, not if they're going to complete their mission.

A look comes across her face, something guarded. "Before I answer, will you tell me who you are?"

A fair question, Danse supposes, even if he's always surprised by people who don't recognize the Brotherhood on sight.

Given where they are though, and with so little support, he's not sure it's to his advantage to share too much information with anyone. This woman may not look like a threat, but that doesn't mean she isn't.

He's been played before.

"In due time," he replies, checking his weapon. "If you want to remain in our compound, I suggest you answer my question first." He's not going to give the power up to another person so easily.

To his surprise, she breaks into a dazzling smile. A humorless laugh escapes; he's amazed by the white perfection of her teeth. "I'm just trying to survive out here...like everyone else." The smile doesn't reach her eyes.

There's something off about this woman. There's no way she's a combat veteran; he usually only sees Aspirants throwing up after a battle. But he saw the way she handled her gun, the practiced stance she took. He saw the way she breathed when she fired, and the way she ducked the ferals as they came at her. She may not be a soldier, but she's definitely not inexperienced. A fortune hunter? A new merc, maybe?

He could let it lie, but Danse isn't one for subtlety. He likes things out in the open, where they can be dealt with. So he puts it out there.

"The way you charged in and engaged those ferals, I find that a bit difficult to believe." She doesn't seem to react to this; her face remains blank. "Are you from a local settlement?" Maybe she can point him towards a safer place to hole up, or a cache of weapons. She seems like the type who might know this kind of thing.

She lets out a sigh, casts around with her eyes for a moment as if looking for an explanation. With none to be found on the ground among the pile of corpses her dog is now sniffing, she looks back up, meets his eyes. Hers are grey and pale. They remind him of moonlight. "I'm from Vault 111."

Now that is interesting. Nothing about this woman adds up. "You're a vault dweller? Most people wouldn't admit to such a thing. I appreciate your honesty."

And it's true, he does. It does, however, make the question of her intervention here even more curious.

Not only that, but honesty begets honesty. He tells her of the mission, of their casualties. Her eyes - those big, expressive eyes - betray her sympathy when he tells her of their losses, of the constant fire. She doesn't speak, but the way her expression changes makes him decide to trust her.

This decision isn't desperation, he tells himself; it's based on a gut feeling. He just hopes he doesn't have to explain this to Maxson later.

"If you want to continue pitching in, we could use another gun on our side," he offers. He knows she's going to ask for money. Of course she is. She may be a vault dweller, but there's still something about the determined set of her chin that says she's looking for something more.

At this, though, she hesitates, and it doesn't feel like she's about to ask for money. A long moment passes between them. He hears Haylen from inside the building, telling Rhys to suck it up and stop being a baby. They must have left the door cracked when they went in.

She seems to be wrestling with something, then finally, she speaks. "I'll continue to help, but...you owe me an explanation first."

Fair enough.

* * *

She doesn't remember the dream upon waking, but there is a distinct impression of fighting and fear and firing her gun into a crowd. There are tears on her face when she sits up, which has somehow become the norm in the short time since she came out of the meatlocker, as she's come to think of the vault.

At first she's disoriented; she doesn't know why she's outside. She's had a distinct fear of being boxed in since leaving the vault. When she can't see the sky, she's anxious and has to fight to keep from shaking. After a moment it comes back - she's inside the Cambridge Police Station with three people who call themselves the Brotherhood of Steel.

To her left is a broken wall; to her right she sees two mattresses with sleeping people on them. A man and a woman - the man was wounded in a firefight outside, she recalls. The woman seems to be some sort of doctor. Both are snoring softly, at different rhythms.

Alice looks around and finds her gun and her bag. Inside her clothes, her skin feels clammy and grimy. She hasn't been able to wash properly since before arriving here. Water is scarce and Danse has them rationing it. Somehow the other three all manage to keep relatively clean, but she's not used to watching her water consumption so carefully, and she's been thirsty.

It's been a week. A week of trying to get her bearings, trying to tease information out of the three soldiers with varying results. Haylen, the woman, is the easiest to talk to and opened up immediately. Rhys, the wounded man, is at the other end of the spectrum: as sullen as Haylen is sunny, he assigns her menial tasks and then reverts to grunts until they're completed. As soon as she reports back in, he'll grudgingly assign her new ones.

And then there's Danse himself, their commanding officer. Something about his open and brusque manner reminds her of Nate, even more than his ruddy complexion and dark hair do. He's comfortable giving orders and it's clear he expects people to follow them. So far he seems a bit humorless, but that seems appropriate given the hellhole she seems to have found herself in.

Because that's what Cambridge is: hell. It seems she can barely step outside without hearing the groans and growls of the ferals, as the others call the people so irradiated their brains have melted. Everything she recognizes has been destroyed and put together incorrectly. Everywhere she looks, she's reminded again and again of everything she's lost.

Danse will probably be disappointed that she's going, but she's waited long enough. She's had some time to try to figure out the rules of this world, but the trail to Shaun will be growing cold and she has to find a clue, a sign, anything that will tell her where he is and if he's okay. She owes him that.

She owes Nate that.

The thought of the two of them, her wonderful men, opens up a chasm of grief in her chest. She's skirted the reality of her losses for ten days now, just trying to survive, and now it threatens to swallow her whole. She fights back a sob and glances over at the sleeping soldiers again. If they've heard her, they're both electing to ignore her distress.

Nate should be here; whether she's here or not, he's the one who should have made it. He's the one who would be better prepared for it. Every time she thinks of the raiders she killed at the Museum of Freedom, she gets sick. She's already lost several pounds at least, from the way her clothes now fit. She dreams about killing every night.

Lives, like candles, snuffed out. One after another after another and she doesn't know how to carry that inside her.

Carefully, she packs up a few rations - purified water, a tin of Cram and some fresh carrots, a couple more boxes of ammunition. They slide easily into her bag. At her feet, Dogmeat perks up and stretches, haunches in the air before ending with a loud yawn.

Dogs really, really don't care, she reflects, glancing again at the sleeping bodies near her.

Outside, Danse is sitting watch. The sun is just starting to come up over the horizon, thin fingers of sunlight poking their way between the rubble. The sky is a deep blue giving way to radiant orange.

Say what you will about nuclear winter, but the view is incredible, she thinks.

"Moving out?" Danse turns from where he stands on a rampart over the junk wall, then jumps down to the ground beside her. The ground shudders where he lands - her own private earthquake - but going by his expression, he doesn't notice.

She nods, and finds herself blushing, almost shamed, at the disappointment on his face.

"I can't stay. I have to keep moving on."

He nods once, a single economic downward motion. He's certainly not the type to waste energy on anything superfluous. "I'm not going to lie; I wish you'd stay longer."

"You know I can't."

That nod again. "You have any hope of finding whoever it is you're looking for?"

She looks past him, into the distance. "Maybe. I hope so. I don't know if I could handle not finding him."

"Good luck in your mission, then." He presses a small sack into her hand. It seems to be nothing but sharp edges inside cloth. She fumbles for a moment and realizes it's bottlecaps.

Preston had told her something about this - bottlecaps are currency now? She wonders how they compare to the dollar, then sets that concern aside.

"I can't take your money," she tries to say, but gets through the second work before Danse snorts at her.

"You can and you will. Your help has been invaluable. We stand a real chance here now." He gestures to the road beyond the junk wall. "Ad victoriam."

* * *

Watching her go, Danse feels a pang of something. It's not that he'll miss her - he doesn't know her and how can you miss someone you don't know? No, it's something besides that.

Regret, maybe? Alice seems capable of handling herself, lost still, somehow. There's something almost otherworldly about her, as if she's been shoved somewhere she doesn't belong.

Listen to him; he sounds like a damn poet. What a waste of his time.

No, what's bothering him, he decides as he climbs the stairs back to the top of the junk wall, is that he feels like he's letting her down. She didn't ask him to go with her, it's true, but somehow he still feels like he should have.

He can't though, not with only two of his squad left and one of them injured, too. He can't compromise his mission. The extra assistance has been invaluable, indeed; he meant it when he told her that. But he has a responsibility to the Brotherhood and abandoning his post to run to ArcJet and back had been stressful enough.

Still, he doesn't want to see her go. It's been a long time since he met someone outside the Brotherhood he felt he could respect. The least he can do it keep an eye on her until she's out of sight. It should be easy enough to keep her in sight with the dog prancing around her.

He gazes into the distance and watches her shape shrink smaller and smaller until he can't see it anymore.

 


	4. Chapter 4

Downtown Boston is a labyrinth of wreckage and hidden hazards. Crossing the bridge to get into the city proper had been nerve-wracking enough - she felt so exposed as she and Dogmeat slunk around destroyed cars and tip-toed past the gaping holes where parts of the bridge had collapsed. No one had bothered them, but now, in the city itself, she can hear gunfire and shouting. There's no easy way to tell which direction the sounds are coming from, and it feels like her skin is constantly prickling.

Alice darts between buildings, eyes on the second and third stories, looking for tell-tale shadows or movement. Nothing jumps out at her, but she has no idea how much farther she has to go, and there's no way she's going to be able to make it the whole way without running into anyone. It just doesn't seem plausible.

She steps into a courtyard and that's when it finally happens: there's a grunt from her right, in the shadow of a building. She turns her head and - completely without consulting the rest of her - her mouth drops open.

It's the biggest man she's ever seen: green, with muscles on top of muscles, wearing nothing but tattered pants and an air of unrestrained malice. The thing in front of her holds a massive submachine gun that looks like a child's toy in his hands. His face wears the most vicious grin she's ever seen, a smile in name only.

Preston had told her about super mutants, but this is...not what she expected. This is so, _so_ much worse.

Her fingers are numb where they wrap around her pistol. She's forgotten she even has it until bullets begin flying, creating pockmarks in the stucco wall behind her.

It's easy enough to dive into a roll, and she ends up behind a large ceramic planter. Hands shaking, she checks her clip and sees that she's fully loaded.

Breathe. Breathe. This won't be any worse than the deathclaw.

The image of Shaun floats behind her eyes, his chubby fingers rubbing Nate's stubbly chin and the sound of his laughter.

Her hands stop shaking and she whips out from behind the planter. Sinks the super mutant with five well-placed bullets.

* * *

Piper is starting to get irritated. Danny's locked her out before, but this time McDonough must be royally pissed because they are just _not_ letting her in. The sun has long since gone down, killing any visibility, and while she's not exactly _scared_ to be outside the big green walls, she knows she wouldn't be the first person to get murdered within earshot of Diamond City. The Fens are not what you might call a safe place.

The world is not what you might call a safe place.

She bangs on the wall again. "Stop playing around, Danny! I'm standing out in the open here, for crying out loud!" She knows she's been a thorn in McDonough's side for a long time, but they can't really mean to leave her out here forever...can they?

The gate doesn't budge; it sits there, green paint slopped over two hundred years of rust, immobile.

Danny's voice, when it comes, is apologetic and maybe even a little scared. What it says, though, is that he's got orders not to let her in.

This again.

Piper loses it a bit there; he can't be serious. McDonough can't really mean to strand her out here forever. She's a citizen of Diamond City, for crying out loud. Later she won't remember what she says in response, but it's brutal. She and Danny go back and forth for a couple minutes, bickering. She's known him since before he started shaving; she can't believe he'd do this to her.

Then she feels it - something cold pressed against the back of her leg. A gun?

No, that's stupid; no one would stick a gun against her leg. It's cold and...wet. She turns and there's a large brown dog, grinning up at her as if he's never seen anyone that makes him so happy. Stunned, Piper takes a step back and stumbles in the wall. A fleck of green paint gets caught in her sleeve.

A radstorm is brewing; she can hear the distinctive sound of thunder that precedes them. All the more reason to get inside.

Looking up, she may have found her ticket in - a woman approaches through the gloom. The dog thumps its tail two times against the pavement and runs back to the newcomer, circling her happily.

The new woman wears mismatched leather armor under a tan coat and holds a pistol in one hand. She has wild blonde curls and one eyebrow that arches more dramatically than the other. It's the Pip-Boy that most interests Piper, though. With the wide-eyed look the woman gives the wall, it's clear she hasn't been above ground before.

Bingo.

"You," she waves the woman over, her voice low and conspiratorial. "You want into Diamond City, right?

The new woman nods, almost anxiously. Overhead, there's a loud boom. They're both gonna sprout extra arms if they don't get inside quick.

"Play along," Piper whispers before raising her voice and turning back to the intercom. "What's that? You said you're a trader up from Quincy? You have enough supplies to keep the general store stocked for a whole month?

And Danny buys it. Or, if he doesn't buy it - and he's not stupid, so probably not - he at least bends. With a shudder, the gate slowly begins to slide upwards. There's a groan from the machinery and the smell of burning rust, and then they're able to slip under the gate and inside the reception area. Danny's quick on the draw - they're barely in before it begins to slide back down.

Piper takes a long, deep breath of the clean air inside the stadium wall. Then another, then a third.

It's in the middle of this third breath that McDonough taps her on the shoulder.

Boy, is he ever mad. She's never seen his face quite this shade of purple before.

"Piper! Who let back inside? I told Sullivan to keep that gate shut!?"

For a moment - a slim, barely registered moment - Piper feels bad about roping Danny into this. Then again, it's not her fault he was on duty when she got back and anyway, she owns a house here. McDonough can't keep her away from home...or Nat.

Now McDonough is on a real tear; she's devious, a rabble-rousing slanderer. Now that she's back inside the walls, this is actually kind of funny. It's the threat of shutting down the press that gets her ire back up and she tells him so. She's dimly aware that there are people staring - a gate guard she's never seen before stands smoking in the corner, the tip of his cigarette reflected in his sunglasses. The woman who slipped in with her has holstered her pistol and looks amused.

"Oooh, that a statement, McDonough? 'Tyrant mayor shuts down the press'."

There's more shouting, more name-calling - McDonough, true to form, even tries to get the new woman involved - before she's eventually allowed back into the city. McDonough tries to kiss the new woman's ass, but she looks tired and doesn't seem to want any part of it. Before long, they're standing at her door after a mad dash down the stairs, frantic to get inside. Even the dog looks anxious and sick.

Inside is the same as always. Nat sleeps on her little mattress behind her curtain, soft snores leaking into the room. Piper pulls off her hat and scratches her scalp. What a long day it's been.

The blonde woman stands at the door, clearly ill-at-ease. Piper had waved her in, but this woman is acting like she's never visited anyone before.

"Come on in, sit down." The woman walks over to the couch and perches there, on the edge of it. Piper has to fight to avoid rolling her eyes.

"I'm Piper."

"Alice," she extends her hand and they shake. It's formal and old-fashioned, but Piper finds she likes it. The woman's voice is low-pitched and almost musical.

"Thanks for your help back there. If you need a place to crash for a night, you're welcome to the couch." The woman looks back at the furniture as if she hadn't noticed it before. "It doesn't look like much, but it's better than paying to get fleas at the Dugout Inn." At this, Alice blinks a couple times.

"So...I have an idea for an article you'd be perfect for," Piper starts. The dog - Alice had called him Dogmeat, she remembers - pads over and climbs up next to her, then settles in with his head in her lap. She scratches his ears and for the first time, a smile plays across her face.

"What's the idea?"

"You're a vault dweller, right?" Alice looks stunned.

"How did you know that?"

"I know you're not wearing the blue jumpsuit right now, but the Pip-Boy and that 'fish out of water look'? Dead giveaways."

Alice smiles a little. "Go on."

"So here's the deal. I want an interview. Your life story, in print." Piper's talking faster now; she can tell this is a great idea, maybe one of her best. How lucky she was to be locked outside and have stumbled across this lead. "I think it's time Diamond City had a little outside perspective on the Commonwealth."

Alice, however, doesn't look so convinced. The small smile she wore just a moment ago is gone, replaced with the type of look Piper usually sees on the faces of family members of newly discovered synth-replaced people. Shell-shock.

"You do that and I tell you what...I'll come with you. Watch your back while you get used to the world above ground."

There's a long silent moment. Alice takes a flask from her back, swishes it, and knocks back a swig of something pungently alcoholic. She grimaces. There are tears in her eyes. Were those there before?

"All right, Piper. I'm in."

* * *

The interview was painful enough - dredging up all her feelings over the last couple weeks wasn't easy. She and Piper had talked for a few hours and by the time it was over, Alice could feel the tears rolling down her cheeks. Piper had made the right noises about her missing son, had shown righteous indignation at how they were frozen and had supplied more booze when Alice's flask ran dry. Then she said to try to get some sleep and disappeared up a ladder, probably to begin writing.

Alice had lain there for hours; she wasn't sure she ever really slept. She tossed and turned and tried to get warm - would she ever get warm again? - but eventually, she realized it was morning. There wasn't any point in lying there any longer, and so she and Dogmeat got up and began pacing around the small shack.

That's when Piper had come down and handed her the article to read.

Now, finished reading it, Alice's cheeks are newly wet again. The Woman Out of Time. Is that ever true.

"Don't be blue," Piper jostles her arm. "Let's go get some noodles."

The noodle stand is in the center of the market. The noodles themselves are surprisingly good; she has no idea how they've recreated one of her favorite meals from before the vault, but they're hot, filling, and tasty. It's almost enough to make her start crying again. Piper would probably draw some conclusions about how she's using the noodles as a proxy for missing her family and her home, but some part of her is just so relieved to eat something that isn't congealed or out of a can and well past its expiration date.

If she could get a hot shower, Alice thinks, she might almost feel human again.

She's about to ask Piper where one might find a place to shower when the other woman begins. "So I think I know who can help you with your problem." Piper slurps a noodle from her bowl.

"Who?" Alice's bowl is nearly empty. She debates getting another portion and feels for the bag of caps Danse gave her. Not enough to do it, not when she's not really hungry.

"His name's Nick Valentine, detective extraordinaire. Got an office here in Diamond City."

* * *

Of course Nick was gone, Piper reflects as she dodges a rain of bullets. Nothing in life is easy, after all. His assistant had been nearly frantic as she explained that he'd been gone for days on end and that she was really worried.

Getting to Park Street Station had been bad enough. The way was treacherous, infested with super mutant and raiders. She'd been stunned to see Alice charge in against one of the mutants, a nasty-looking brute with a dog twice as big as any dog should be. But the vault dweller had pulled the baseball bat from where she'd slung it over her shoulder and begun wailing on the mutant, screaming so loud Piper was convinced half of Boston was going to rain down on them.

She's beginning to wonder if that vault didn't fry her new friend's brain when they froze her.

So now here they are, trading bullets with a bunch of Triggermen, the gang from Goodneighbor. There's a yelp from her left, across the tracks - Dogmeat has gotten ahold of one of them and it gnawing on the man's leg. He raises his gun but isn't fast enough; Piper fires hers and he drops, blood leaking from just below his ear. Dogmeat releases him and takes off to find a new enemy.

They make their way slowly through the subway station, sticking to the shadows and stepping as quietly as they can. There's a tense moment when they surprise one of the gangsters as he finished taking a leak on the disconnected third rail, but Alice's bat catches him in the chin and when he drops, it's with a face shredded by barbed wire. He whimpers and takes off into the dark, down a tunnel.

It's the vault door that gives them pause. The three of the stand before it. Dogmeat leans against Alice's leg and whimpers a little.

Finally, Piper speaks. "If we're really looking for Nick, we're gonna have to head in there."

Alice swallows visibly. "I know."

"You're probably going to want his help to find your son."

More tensely, this time: "I know."

Apologetically, "I'm sure this is a little scary for you. I'm just trying to help."

Alice turns, a small smile sneaking across her face. "I know."


	5. Chapter 5

There's something final about standing over Kellogg's body. It's like she has a name for evil now.

_Kellogg_.

Somehow, nothing seems different. When she killed the raiders at the Corvega plant, all she could see was wasted potential. What might these people have been if the war hadn't happened and everything hadn't gone to hell? Who might they have been?

The feral ghouls she killed in Cambridge - those were people once. Mothers and fathers, doctors and lawyers and shopkeepers. Mailmen. Again: wasted potential. People who might have been _something_ if not for that blast.

But when she looks down at Kellogg, all Alice can see is a murderer. A kidnapper.

All she can wonder is what he's turned Shaun into over the last nine years. If he's ten years old now, maybe she can deal with that...but she can't deal with the man who killed her husband raising their son to be a killer.

And what did he want with her son, anyway?

She'll never know now.

She kneels down and begins to search his body for clues. There's not much to find - his gun is definitely an upgrade from the small pistol she's been using, and his jacket is much better than hers. She strips that off him as well and puts it on in place of the tattered one she's worn the last month or so.

When she looks up, she can see Nick looking down at her. His face is synthetic and doesn't emote well, and she can't tell what he's thinking.

Thinking? Processing? She can't tell what the right terminology is, let alone what's going on in there.

Maybe looting the dead isn't exactly cool, but there's no point in leaving perfectly good resources here to rot until some other scavenger pulls something off his skeleton in another two hundred years.

She sits back on her haunches. Two hundred years. Two. Hundred.

It hits her at the strangest times and suddenly she's dizzy, thinking again about how it's all gone. Everything she's known before the last month. Before waking up like a t.v. dinner in a freezer.

She's turned Kellogg's corpse over to look in his pockets when she finds the port at the base of his skull. With half his head ripped off, it's easy to see. She searches around and finds a scalpel in a nearby medkit, then uses it to carefully remove the port and everything attached to it.

A wave of dizziness hits her again. It looks like brain.

* * *

Winlock and Barnes are not exactly who MacCready was hoping to see tonight. There's a girl been hanging around The Third Rail he's been trying to see, a little redhead with lots of freckles. It's been a long time now since Lucy - just over four years - and in all that time he hasn't been with another woman.

He can't even tell if she's in tonight because these two assh- _knuckleheads_ are in his way. They've got him cornered in the back room, acting tough and talking about delivering a message.

MacCready's no idiot. He knows what that means.

"In case you forgot, I left the Gunners for good." He sways as he stands. His drink drops out of his hand and falls on the floor. There's the distant sound of glass breaking and he knows Whitechapel Charlie's gonna be pissed at him. Somehow he doesn't care.

"Yeah, I heard." Winlock wears a sneer like other people wear smiles. "But you're still taking jobs in the Commonwealth. That isn't going to work for us."

Don't these fuc- _jerks_ know that he doesn't have to do what they say? It's enough to make you scream.

"I don't take orders from you. Not anymore." Even to him, his voice sounds reedy, petulant. "So...why don't you take your girlfriend," he gestures at Barnes, whose face somehow turns red despite his dark complexion, "and walk out of here while you still can."

Barnes is protesting, angry. Behind him, MacCready hears someone else come into the room. He wants to look, to find out who it is, but he knows better than to take his eyes off the Gunners in front of him. They _probably_ won't murder him in the middle of The Third Rail, but probably isn't definite.

Winlock sighs. "Listen up, MacCready. The only reason we haven't filled your body full of bullets is that we don't want a war with Goodneighbor." His voice takes on a lecturing tone. "See, we respect other people's boundaries. We know how to play the game, something you've never learned."

These dipshits really need to get out of his face before he loses it. "Glad to have disappointed you," he says, trying to keep himself from sounding snarky and failing. There's someone else in here and that makes him feel safer somehow.

A chuckle from Winlock. "You can play the tough guy all you want. But if we hear you're still operating in Gunner territory, all bets are off." Winlock knows damn well that's the entire Commonwealth. He'd have to go back to the Capital Wasteland or head west to get out of their turf.

And then how would he see Duncan?

"You finished?" He growls back.

From the main bar, he can hear Magnolia launch into a new number, a sultry guitar lick leading into the smoky saxophone and slinky sound of her voice like the sound of a woman's dress sliding down her legs.

God, does he need to get laid.

"Yeah...we're finished." Winlock gives him one final sneer and MacCready is tempted to tell him his face might stick like that but holds his tongue in check. The two mercs turn and stalk out, Barnes giving him one last dirty look as they go.

_Took a walk_

_Out in the fens_

_Had a talk with a man about some_ _chems_

_He asked me what's your flavor_

_I said I need a favor_

He's not alone in this room; he's startled to see a woman leaning against the wall next to the door, arms crossed and with a smirk on her face. A dog sits patiently at her feet, a great brown brute that reminds him of one he met once in Little Lamplight.

She wears a leather jacket and brown fingerless gloves. Peeking out from underneath, he can see a glimpse of flannel and mismatched leather armor. Her hair cascades over her shoulders in bright golden waves that glimmer in the dim lighting down here. Her smile seems a little dark and doesn't reach her flinty eyes. There's a long scratch that runs along her right eyebrow and then curls around the eye; it's healing but still raw and he knows from experience that it'll leave an impressive scar.

There's something about a woman who isn't afraid to get hurt.

He sways where he stands and waits for her to speak.

"You look like you're in some trouble."

No shit. "If you're looking for a hired gun, then maybe we can talk."

She straightens, taking a step towards him and away from the wall. He can see now the baseball bat slung over her back. The end of it is wrapped in barbed wire and he can see where the reinforced back of her jacket is already shredding. A pistol flashes on her hip.

"How much?" He thinks he can see a glimpse of one breast when she shifts position.

He mulls it over a moment, tries to catch his bearings. There's a cigarette in his hand that he meant to light before the two dunces came in, and he does so now. Takes a long drag while he considers his options.

"Two hundred fifty caps."

She laughs. It's not a happy sound. She takes another step towards him and taps him lightly on the chest.

MacCready loses his balance and collapses back into his chair. He chokes on the smoke in his lungs and begins coughing.

"I don't have that for a liability like you." She looks him over carefully. "Maybe we can work something out."

* * *

Alice needs money. Not money - caps. No one in Diamond City seems to need much work done. She's tried selling scavenged gear from raiders or mutants that she comes across, but this is dangerous work and she's not going to seek them out.

If she's going after Virgil, she's going to need power armor and lots of Rad-X, and those things don't come cheap.

She'd come out of the Memory Den dizzy and trying not to lose her lunch.

"Hope you got what you were looking for inside my head. Heh. I was right. Should've killed you when you were on ice."

It had been Nick's face and Kellogg's voice and she couldn't even begin to parse what that meant. Not when it sent ice down her spine. Not when she needed to figure out how she was going to traverse the Glowing Sea and find her way to this scientist.

The Third Rail had beckoned to her, its neon blinking in a friendly way in the dark. Whitechapel Charlie had been quick to offer her a drink, and the music had been familiar without being something she'd heard before. And then Charlie had offered her a way to make the caps she needs to get where she needs to go.

Now, half a bottle in, she stares MacCready down. They're playing quarters over a bottle of the most vile vodka she's ever tasted and she's winning, but just barely.

"So we clear out the warehouses."

She nods.

"And then we collect."

She nods again.

"And we each get two hundred caps?"

She nods a third time. "I talked Charlie into double the caps."

MacCready looks at her appraisingly. Something in her stomach flips. "You've got quite the silver tongue there."

"You have no idea."

Before she knows it, they're at the Hotel Rexford, in her room on the top floor. It has a great view, but that's not what matters right now.

He's not Nate, and his lips are rough on her neck. His hands fumble at the zipper on her jacket before manages to slide the pull down. Then he's sliding it over her narrow shoulders and she's working her way down the buttons on his shirt.

His chest is thin and sallow. There's some brown hair curling there, but nothing compared with the thicket of fur Nate had. He's wiry, strong but almost scrawny and she feels a momentary maternal pang for all the children of this generation that didn't get to eat well or grow up playing ball in the street.

His body is firm against hers as she kicks off her pants to the pile of discarded clothes by the door of her room. His mustache rubs against her lips and she breaks away from him to guide him inside of her. They move together and his panting is loud in her ear; she can feel the pressure - the _heat_ \- building inside of her.

There's a hand on her breast and his tongue flicks her nipple, and she wraps her legs around his waist. She grabs him by the shoulders and uses the leverage to flip them over so that she's on top. He tips his head back, eyes closed, breathing ragged.

She envelops him, dragging her hands along his chest, and tries not to think of her husband.

* * *

MacCready can't decide what's more painful, the hangover or the fact that he's fucked someone who isn't Lucy.

And he's agreed to _work_ with her. There's no way this'll be weird, nah. Not one little bit.

He sits in a chair across the room from the bed, looking at her sleep. The last time he saw someone look so relaxed at rest was the last night he saw Duncan. It seems like every other person he's seen sleep has had one eye open, figuratively. But this woman...she's completely _out_. Like a child. Like she hasn't got a care in the world.

The cigarette in his hand is almost burned down, so he takes one last drag and stubs it out. He gets up, still naked, and slides into the bed next to her. Her skin is pale. He rubs one hand along her arm and plants a kiss on her shoulder. There's a freckle there, a small dark dot.

She doesn't move. He traces his lips along her shoulder and up to her neck, then reaches his hand around between her legs.

He can feel her responding before she even wakes. There's a dampness, and her legs part. Then he feels her wake, and she lets out a soft moan.

He moves his hand up to cup her breast, but she firmly brings it back down, between her thighs. She moves against him, teasing him with her ass, and he lets out a grunt.

Before he knows it, he's back inside of her and wondering what he's thinking.

* * *

"Well."

"Well." She seems almost embarrassed as she pulls her pants on, one leg at a time.

MacCready takes a drag of his cigarette. "That was fun last night." He's still naked. She may not be Lucy, but he won't deny that he had a good time.

Alice shifts uncomfortably on the bed. Puts one boot on and begins lacing it. "It's...been a while since I've done anything like that."

"Me too." He lets out a plume of smoke.

"I think perhaps it's been longer for me."

He sighs, flicks some ash off the end. "Four years ago my wife died. Lucy. She was...my everything."

Her face collapses. "I'm so sorry. How...did it happen?"

"Ferals. I miss her every day." He takes another drag, blows out the smoke. Stands, stretches. He can see her looking at him again, at the marks she left on his chest. Inside he can't help but feel a flicker of pride. "How long has it been for you?"

Suddenly she's coy. "Longer than that." She takes the cigarette from his hand and takes a long drag. Clearly not a smoker, she coughs as she releases the smoke. "About two hundred years longer."

His mouth is agape. It's not often he doesn't have a smartass remark, but this time MacCready is nonplussed.

"That would mean you were around before the war." She nods. "Wow."

She shrugs. "It's becoming less real to me every day." Alice turns and picks up his bundle of clothes. He barely catches them when they land in his arms. "C'mon. We've got some bad guys to take care of."

Can't argue with that.


	6. Chapter 6

Every day since she hired him, Alice tells herself that she won’t sneak into MacCready’s bed that night. She’ll see him pocket something without paying, or see the grimly satisfied expression that killing an opponent gives him, and she’ll think to herself, that’s it. It’s over.  _ This _ is the thing I can’t excuse.

And then every night she find herself crawling onto his mattress, or into his bedroll, and having her way with him. She’s destroyed more than one shirt and there’s a pair of pants that she completely shredded in her haste to get them off him. He never complains, and gives as good as he gets. She has a whole collection of finger-sized bruises on her arms and legs from where he’s grabbed her, wrestling her to the ground or against a wall. 

It’s something chemical; it’s something animal. She wants nothing more than to excuse him from her employ and nothing more than to keep him around to find comfort in each night.

Slowly the caps add up. Day by day, she finds the sack of caps in her bag growing a bit heavier. The little jobs turn into bigger ones, and though she’s scrupulous about sharing her haul with MacCready, she’s beginning to make some real progress. At this rate, she’ll be out to find Virgil in no time.

Or she would be, at any rate, until the day she and MacCready stumble back across the Cambridge Police Station. 

It’s been weeks since she last left - how many? Six? Seven? The days in this new world have blended together and she can barely keep track of the weeks anymore. All Alice can think about is getting to Virgil before the courser can find him. 

If she isn’t already too late.

 

* * *

 

A mile south of the station is a pile of corpses - feral ghouls, stacked like cordwood and rotting in the sun. The police station looks much the same as before, although lit orange in the fiery sunset. It’s still a ruin, though better fortified than it used to be. There are heavily-armored soldiers standing out front with laser weapons drawn. 

Maybe it’s her honest face, but they let her through with no trouble. Inside, Danse sits in a heap of power armor, repairing something in his laser rifle that’s letting off an odor like burning tires. There’s a dim memory that surfaces for her of Nate coming home with the same smell in his clothes, and for one moment it takes her back to that time, to when life made more sense. 

He looks up at her and for a moment she thinks she sees a smile flit through his eyes, although somehow his face stays the same. Still, there’s a warmth to his eyes at the sight of her.

“Ready to continue our mission, soldier?” There’s a snap, a click, and the smell of grease as he shuts a door on his rifle. Behind her, standing too close, she can feel MacCready shift uncomfortably. 

“Perhaps.” She pauses, thinking about how to say what she wants. Finally, she just spits it out. “I need a suit of power armor.”

Danse is quiet for a long moment. He gives her an appraising look. “I can do that for you  if you join the Brotherhood. I can recommend that you be field-promoted to the rank of knight, which means you’ll be assigned your own suit of power armor.”

She can’t breathe. This is it. 

“What do I owe you?” She fumbles in her bag. “I can pay for the armor.”

Danse shakes his head in that way he has - one turn to the right and another to left. Economical. 

“You’ll need to uphold the ideals of the Brotherhood and fight to secure all technology from those who might wish to abuse it.” When he speaks of this, there’s a gleam in his eye - it’s clear he truly believes in the mission. Behind her, Alice hears MacCready stifle a snicker. 

At this point, she’d agree to almost anything if it’ll get her in that power armor. “I can do that.”

Now Danse really does smile. “Excellent. Welcome aboard, Initiate. Lancer-Captain Kells has ordered we return to the Prydwen at first light. In the meantime, you should resupply and get some rest. Meet me on the roof at daylight.”

 

* * *

 

She’s got her back to him. They’re alone in some sort of office - a terminal with a desk in the corner and a few decrepit filing cabinets around. When she bends over to get something out of a lower drawer, MacCready can see the firm curves of her ass like a taunt. He exhales suddenly, choking on the smoke in his lungs. He takes the cigarette out of his mouth and crushes it out against the door frame. The butt falls to the floor still smoldering, but he’s already crossed the room. Behind him, the door swings shut. 

His hands are on her, turning her shoulders so she’s facing him. Alice’s face is angry, her lips tight and eyebrows drawn down. The zipper of her jacket resists, and so does she when he brings his lips down on hers.

It’s a rough kiss; she’s fighting him. She’s trying to push him off her, muttering something about how it’s not the right time or place, but his nimble fingers have worked off her gun belt. It falls to the floor with a clatter.

With one hand, he grabs her wrists and uses the strength of his wiry body to force her back against one of the filing cabinets. They meet it with a soft clang and she grunts.

“Get off me,” her voice is low and the look in her eyes says she wants him anyway. 

Inside her jacket, he begins stripping the buttons from her shirt. They pop off one by one, the thread that held them on long since rotted through. Beneath that she wears a silky bra, and he reaches up to cup one creamy breast. He feels her moan into her mouth more than he hears her, and brings his lips down to kiss her shoulder. 

She’s still fighting him but he knows she wants this; why else would she keep coming to him over the last several weeks if she didn’t want him?

He gives her nipple one last rough squeeze and moves his hand between her legs. She’s moving against him, away from him, and he grabs her by the hip and pushes her back against the filing cabinet. Her belt buckle is easy enough after unbuckling it so many times, and soon enough he’s sliding her pants down her thighs, marveling as he always does at the smoothness of her skin.

Alice has stopped fighting him by the time he presses his tongue against her clit. There’s the smell of her all around him, like nothing he’s ever smelled before. Lucy somehow tasted like gum drops, but this is different although still intoxicating. He rubs his nose into her, tastes her, and feels her give a shudder. Her fingers wrap into his hair, knocking his hat to the floor and giving a small tug on the strands above one ear. He puts two fingers inside her, massaging her from the inside. 

When he feels the grip in his hair relax and his hand is dripping, he moves his face away. Her face is expectant, desperate. He grabs her by one hip and pushes her towards the desk. She lands with her hands splayed, tripping on the pants that pool around her ankles.

It’s short work to drop his own pants and with a little bit of spit, he’s inside her. He’s not gentle - she hasn’t been tame with him and he sees no point in treating her any better. There’s more than a little anger in it when he pushes inside of her and he hears her gasp. He grabs her ass with one hand, rubbing up against it, and pulls out partway before pushing back into her again. 

Again, she gasps.

He leans over her and snakes one hand around to grab her breast. Her bra is in the way and he pulls it down harshly to play with her nipple. Inside her he can feel her muscles holding him as he moves in and out of her, and there’s a heat building inside of him, forcing its way down and through his thighs. 

She’s trying to get up off the desk and he leans farther over her, forcing her head against the desk with one arm. And then, as suddenly as it all began, he can feel his climax, a pleasurable release inside of her. He thinks she finishes too, as she suddenly goes still and silent beneath him. Her legs relax as she leans lets the desk take her entire weight. 

Looking at her after, he knows why he forced it. As she pulls a clean shirt and pants on, she looks at him mutinously, her eyes little more than slits. 

This was the last time. 

“You’re right,” he says in response to the sentence she’s left unsaid. “This isn’t right for either of us.”

At that, her face softens. “I’m glad you understand.”

“So...the Brotherhood of Steel, huh? I won’t pretend I’m thrilled.” He pulls a cigarette from his pack and lights it, the flame casting menacing shadows around the dim office. He can barely see her nod as she buttons her shirt.

“Where will you go next?”

He exhales and watches the smoke ascend. “Well, Goodneighbor is out. Maybe I’ll head over to Diamond City. See if there’s any work around.”

Her eyes glitter in the light of the cigarette. She snatches it from him, takes a long drag, and hands it back. When her fingers touch his, he feels a familiar ache deep inside. 

This was the last time. You never really know when the last time will be, he thinks. 

“Check in with Piper Wright at Publick Occurences. I’ll give you a hundred caps to watch her back and keep her out of trouble,” Alice says, shuffling in her bag for the caps.

MacCready shakes his head. “I can’t take your caps.”

But she’s already pressed them into his palm and is wrapping his fingers around them. “Please take them. For Duncan.” There’s something gentle in her eyes.

He can’t argue with that. 

 

* * *

 

Danse doesn’t know why, but he breathes easier with that merc gone. It doesn’t seem like the new recruit is the type to take up with someone like that, but she did show up here with him. It doesn’t show the best judgment, he grumbles to himself as he finishes sliding the coverplate back in place on his laser rifle. 

Alice sits across from him now, quietly fiddling with her pack. She’s got a holster on now, and an impressive leather jacket. There’s something different about her now - there’s still the quiet strength that impressed him several weeks ago, but now there’s a new hardness around her edges. Or maybe that’s just the fresh, red scar that wraps around one eye. When he looks carefully, he can see a burn farther up on her forehead.

When she meets his eye that he realizes he’s been staring at the new recruit and he takes his eyes away. 

It’s time for his watch anyway. He leaves the police station to take up his position on the wall.

 

* * *

 

In her dream, Alice realizes that whenever she tries to picture Nate, all she sees in Kellogg. He stands over her, his eyes hard, a gun fixed on her face. She’s naked, lying in bed, and the air around her is cold. 

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite former icicle,” he says but it’s Valentine’s voice she hears. 

And then he fires.

She wakes up in a sweat, relieved not to be crying. Looking around, she tries to find MacCready before she realizes that he’s long gone. 

It’s probably for the best. She’s not sure she has words for what they’ve done to each other.

For what he’s done to her.

Her back is still sore from the drawerpull of the filing cabinet digging into her, and when she walks, she feels a tightness in her joints that wasn’t there before. Her lawyer’s brain tries to parse the question of consent in what happened and she lies back on the narrow cot Danse assigned her in frustration.

She’s definitely better off.

Around her, the breaths of the Brotherhood soldiers - her brothers and sisters now, she supposes - are quiet and all happen at once. Is this what will happen to her? Will she snore in sync?

The standard-issue blanket above her is scratchy but warm. Too warm. She kicks it off.

What’s eating away at her is the reality of what she’s trying to do. She doesn’t have any interest in the Brotherhood or their mission. They’re just a means to an end: if what everyone says about the Glowing Sea is true, she’s going to need that power armor to survive her trip to find Virgil, if he’s even still alive.

And the only way she can come up with to get is to join them. 

Last night, though, it was as if he was seeing through her. Danse had looked at her with such seriousness that she would swear he could see straight into every chess move she had planned. He could see that she would wait until she got her first assignment and then she’d go, whatever it meant for her future. 

She’s nervous now; there’s no way she’s going back to sleep. She sits up, climbs out of the bed, and begins pulling her gear on. Her neck is sore, and she finds a new bruise on one thigh that hurts deliciously when she presses on it.

Making the bed takes no time at all, and then she tiptoes back to the main room.

Haylen sits alone at one of the small tables, picking disinterestedly at a can of Cram. The scribe perks up with Alice comes into the room, shutting what remains of the shattered door behind her.

“I’m so glad you decided to join us,” Haylen starts, keeping her voice quiet. She pushes a can of something over to Alice. When she looks inside, it’s peas. Her stomach does a flip, and she shakes her head but smiles a thank you.

“I guess I just decided it made sense.”

Haylen nods, takes another small bite of Cram with a shudder.

“Danse says you’re looking for someone.”

_ Shaun _ .

Alice nods, lowering her eyes so that Haylen won’t see the tears that spring to her eye when she thinks of him, but it’s too late. Haylen’s hand is on her arm, firm and warm.

“We’re sisters now. Don’t worry.”

 

* * *

 

 

Initiate Delaney arrives on the roof right on schedule, at sunup. Danse feels a vague sense of relief that he won’t have to chase this one out of bed like so many others. On the other hand, she is older than most initiates - only by a few years, but that can make a world of difference. 

“Glad to see you on time, soldier,” he greets her. She gives him a wan smile.

“My husband was in the military. I could never sleep once he got up, so I guess I’m just used to early mornings and long hours.” 

Danse is momentarily stunned. He’s never heard so much from her at once. And, for that matter, he’s a little confused by her reference to the military. Does she mean the Enclave?

But that doesn’t make any sense; he doesn’t think they made it this far north, and he remembers her telling him she’s never been to the Capital Wasteland before.

No matter; this is an issue for Maxson. He gestures to the vertibird and her eyes go wide. At that, he can’t help but smile. 

The trip to the Prydwen is uneventful. There’s not much to see down there, not this early - most of the worst threats have bunked down and are still sleeping, and if there’s super mutants bellowing down there, well, you can’t hear them over the blades on the vertibird. 

He looks out over the river and, as always, is amazed by how different it looks.

“The Commonwealth looks different from up here, doesn’t it?” he says to her over the din. “It never ceases to amaze me how drastically your perception of the battlefield changes from the air.” He sighs. For a moment, he wonders inside if this was how things looked before the war. 

That’s wasted line of thought though. There’s no going back, only forward. The old world is gone, long before his time. And there’s a war to be won.

“We’re going to need that edge when we take on the Institute,” he says with another sigh.

She looks at him with a carefully neutral expression and nods flatly.

As always, the sight of the massive airship makes his heart beat a little bit faster. Maybe it’s pride; he watched her being built in the massive hangar at Adams. It’s incredible to see her here, in the Commonwealth, bringing the fight to their enemies and serving their mission. Something about serving the Brotherhood - about serving Maxson - makes his fierce sense of pride burn a little brighter.

“There she is,” he nudges Delaney, and she looks up. “It’s been far too long since I’ve been aboard.”


	7. Chapter 7

The earliest thing Danse can remember is the sound of a woman humming. To this day, he’s never been able to figure out  _ who _ is it that he remembers humming - a mother, a grandmother, an aunt. A sister. It could be someone he was related to by blood but doesn’t remember; it could be Annette in Rivet City. It might even be one of his sisters after he found a place with the Brotherhood - many of his memories before he joined up are fuzzy, confusing. 

It’s humming, a simple melody that he can’t place with any other tune he’s heard. In this memory, he feels warm and safe; there’s a dim feeling that everything will be okay now. Whatever that means.

Often, it comes to him as a dream, shortly before waking. This time he’s huddled in a cave with a new recruit, deep in the Glowing Sea, waiting for Knight Delaney to wake up. Next to him, her power armor creaks as she stirs in her sleep. 

He doesn’t think her constitution is any weaker than his own, but this is the second bag of Radaway he’s dropped into her arm and she’s still unconscious, although her color has returned to normal. Hunkering down to allow a fallen soldier to rally isn’t unreasonable, but it’s been nearly twelve hours since she collapsed and he dragged her - and her power armor - into this rocky cave under the old Red Rocket. Killing the radscorpion had been easy enough, but waiting for her to wake up is wearing him down.

The ground under his feet is dusty as he stands and paces. Danse pulls a pack of Dandy Boy Apples from his gear and munches. Peeling back the lid, he thinks back to the conversation they’d had outside Fort Strong.

“I need to go take care of something.” She’d been looking out over the water in the bay. It was a deep blue, rippling gently in the breeze. Her hair was skimmed back from her face, blown back by the gentle wind; he could see the rough edges of the scar that followed her eyebrow and curled around one cheekbone. She’d pulled a chain up from under her armor; a plain golden ring hung from it, and she’d slid it back and forth across the chain, her brow furrowed.

Her vagueness had annoyed him. “What could be more important than the Brotherhood’s mission,  _ soldier _ ?” He’d stressed the last word. What could be more important than his mission?

Delaney had looked down and fiddled for a moment with her pistol before stowing it and looking back at the horizon. When she’d spoken again, her voice was soft, but carried on the wind. 

“My son,” she’d said. 

For some reason, he’d heard the humming again.

“I think he’s about ten but was taken when he was just a year old.” There had been one tear that made its way down her cheek, and she’d kept sliding that ring back and forth. And then the whole story had come out: her life pre-War. Being frozen for two centuries. The murder of her husband. The kidnapping of her child. Killing Kellogg, and the new scar on her face. She’d fallen silent after she told him about tracing Kellogg’s memories, but he’d understood by then what she had to do.

“When do we leave?” There had been no question that he was going with her.

And so here they are, below ground in this cave where his geiger counter had finally stopped clicking, and he waits for her to come back. She’d collapsed just after “crossing the Connecticut line,” or whatever that meant. It had been the last thing she’d said before he realized she was lying in a heap on the ground.

He paces, and watches her, wondering if she’ll be okay or if this mission has been the death of her.

 

* * *

It’s hard to be sure which cave is the right one. Since her collapse, Danse keeps making her stop at every third one. His officiousness is exhausting and doesn’t sit well with her, and Alice is growing tired of being treated like a china plate. She’d thought if anyone would take her seriously, it would be Danse, but it’s not panning out that way.

She’s long since lost count of which number cave they’re on when they crest a hill of rubble and find the source of the glow that gives the sea its name. The air is hazy with radiation; it has weight and trying to walk through it makes her think of the tapioca pudding her mother used to give her as a child. Around them, there’s a green-yellow radiance that emanates from a hole in the ground. 

The hole itself is like an active volcano; it’s molten orange and pulses maliciously. Somehow, improbably, there’s a small metal hut situated on a wooden track directly above what must have been the blast site. She can barely look at it; the horror of it all is overwhelming. 

If Virgil is here, there’s no way he’s still alive. Even this close, even in her power armor and dosed with Rad-X, her geiger counter beeps ominously.

Across the crater are a small number of post-war shacks; in this fog it never truly gets dark, but she’s lost all sense of time and has no idea if it’s midday or breakfast time or the dead of night. From here, she can see a number of people moving around. Their movements are smooth, if sluggish; it doesn’t look like they’re ghouls.

Curious.

From behind her, she distinctly hears a snort of derision. Amused, she turns and looks at Danse. With his helmet on, it’s impossible to see his expression, but there’s something in his posture that communicates a sense of distaste.

“Children of Atom,” he gestures at the people making their way from the largest of the huts and about their business.

“Children of Adam?” She asks. 

The helmet shakes. “ _ Atom _ . As in the bomb. I ran into these freaks in the Capital Wasteland worshipping a defunct bomb. I’d never thought we’d find them here.” 

If there was a place to sit down, she would be. Inside her power armor, against her chest, Nate’s ring suddenly seems to burn. People who worship a bomb.

People who worship nuclear weapons. 

A cult that worships radiation. 

She’s dizzy, and for a long moment Alice wonders remotely if she’s about to faint again. Her geiger counter beeps and she takes three long, deep breaths, radiation be damned. Eventually she can feel her feet again, then her knees. When she feels more steady, she begins making her way down the slope created by the destruction of humanity to talk to the deviants that see fit to deify the destruction.

 

* * *

The whole way to this cave, Danse has kicked himself for telling her about the Cult of Atom. Not cult. Children. Church. No - no matter what those nuts call it, their religion is nothing but a cult.  Talking to the woman who called herself Mother Isolde has at least given them a direction to head in, but Delaney has been very quiet, with just the sound of their footfalls and the beep of the geiger counter in his suit warning him of the danger. 

From the moment they enter the cave, it’s clear they’re in the right place; a gun turret clicks around on its tripod. For some reason - luck? Fate? - it doesn’t trigger on them, no matter how close they get. After a long moment of watching the sensors on her power armor, Alice pulls the helmet off her power armor and walks slowly through the cave. After a long moment debating it and watching the needle on his geiger, Danse does the same. 

Weaponry watching the door? Sounds like Mother Isolde’s information was good. He follows her through the cave, stepping past a roving protectron, and then stops dead. 

In front of him is something that can’t possibly be Virgil. It’s massively built, muscular, and  _ green _ . It’s a super mutant.

Not Virgil at all then, but the thing that killed him.

Danse’s hand goes automatically to his weapon and he’s drawn it and is ready to fire when Alice puts her heavily-gloved hand on his rifle barrel and points it down to the cave floor. That’s when the thing turns and he sees it’s wearing glasses.

Well, that’s weird. 

“I know you’re from the Institute,” the thing is saying. Danse tries to get his head in gear. Tries to catch up. “So, where’s Kellogg? Huh? Trying to sneak up on me while you distract me? It’s not going to work.”

“Are you Virgil?” Her voice shakes a little and Danse has the uncanny urge to steady her with a hand on her elbow. Instead he takes a step back to make sure he has a clear shot.

“You know damn well I am,” the thing growls. But how can that be? Unless…but now it’s speaking again. “What’re you doing here?”

 

* * *

 

 

“Super mutants are responsible for the death of a close friend.” 

It’s evening; they sit at a small campfire well outside of the Glowing Sea, somewhere south of Natick. Overhead the sky is clear and Alice can finally see the stars. If she squints when she looks to the southwest, she can pretend the glow is just the lights of Hartford. 

Danse is still in his armor - she’s never yet seen him take it off. He must, on board the Prydwen. Maybe. He scoffed at her when she insisted on taking her own off to sleep, but after wearing it non-stop for the better part of a week, the night air is delicious on her skin. She finally feels like she can breathe.

Across the fire, his face is serious. Instead of looking her in the eye with his usual intensity, Danse looks at the ground. 

“A Brotherhood knight, named Cutler.” His voice is soft but strident. There’s pain in it, but it’s clear, as he tells her the story of his friend and the part he played in Cutler’s death. 

When he’s finished, they’re both silent for a moment.

“Danse...I’m sorry.”

“I am too, but it had to be done. He would’ve done the same for me.”

Between them, the fire crackles. Somewhere off in the distance, she can hear a dog howl. Maybe it’s a wolf. Maybe there’s some horrifying crossbreed she’s yet to discover in the wasteland that’s coming to eat her in her sleep. The thought - or maybe the winter chill - makes her shiver. She pulls her hat down over her ears and pokes the fire. Why did she leave Dogmeat with Piper? He’d certainly warm her up tonight.

Her thoughts flick briefly to MacCready before she drags her focus back to the man across from her and what he’s saying.

“I can’t kill him, Danse.”

“He voluntarily infected himself. Why would someone do that?” He’s looking at her now, and his expression is fierce.

“You know why. How else would he escape the Institute? Going into the Glowing Sea does make a certain amount of sense, if he thought Kellogg would be coming after him.” She shivers again. “Besides, he seemed to think he could replicate the cure.”

She looks down at the fire, breaking eye contact. Across the fire, Danse sighs with frustration. 

“You have a good heart,” he continues. “But the Brotherhood teaches us that all threats must be eliminated. If the Institute has FEV, they must have been infecting the locals with it. That means that he’s a hostile.”

He has a point. And yet -

“People can change, Danse. I’m sure he knows that’s wrong.”

Danse’s mouth is a hard line. The fire flickers, and the shadows loom large. 

“In times of war, people need to take a stand. You never know what someone will be capable of when their back is against the wall.”

For a moment the world flips, and she’s looking at Nate over the breakfast table, coffee in one hand and paper in the other. Then she realizes it’s just tears in her eyes, and when she blinks, she sees again that it’s Danse in his armor holding a can of purified water and a laser rifle.

_Breathe_. 

She closes her eyes and reminds herself to breathe again. There’s smoke in the air; it burns her lungs. But it’s real. This is real.

Nate is gone.

When she opens her eyes again, Danse is looking at her with concern. 

“Do you need a moment, Delaney?” 

She thinks fleetingly of telling him the smoke got into her eyes and then, recklessly, decides to tell the truth.

“You just...reminded me of my husband for a moment.” She pulls the ring on its chain from inside her shirt and slides it over her finger. It’s several sizes too large and slips around. Playing with it, hearing it clink against the one on her finger, is somehow calming. 

“I see.” Danse’s face is guarded. Something has happened here, and she’s not sure what. “Why don’t you get some sleep, soldier.” He sets down the water and rolls his neck. “I’ll take first watch.”

 

* * *

 

Again, with the humming. This time he can hear the clanking of Rivet City around him, and the comforting groan as the massive ship rides the waves. When he rolls over, it’s Katy - pretty Katy with the dark hair, Mark’s daughter, the one who climbed into his bed one night and made him a man. 

“I’m in love, I’m in love, I’m in love with a wonderful guy,” she sings softly as she brushes her hair. Underneath him, the pallet is lumpy and hard. There’s a smell of mildew. 

Suddenly, Danse is awake. When he opens his eyes for real, it’s next to the smolders of a former fire by the side of a road, in a shelter made by a tractor trailer that had collided with a train. The sound that woke him is Delaney stuffing supplies in her pack.

“You’re awake.” She doesn’t look happy about it.

He’s groggy, confused. He hates waking up; if it was up to him, he’d never go to sleep. Waking up is too disorienting. For example, it looks like Delaney is getting ready to go somewhere without backup, which is crazy, and he tells her so.

She sighs in that way she has, as if she’s not sure why she has to explain something to him. “I have to go after the courser, Danse.”

“Exactly. You’re going to need help.”

She stops and gives him a look he’s not entirely sure how to parse.

“I’m not killing Virgil.”

This again.    


“We can talk about it later.”

“No, Danse.” She zips her pack shut forcefully, a grimace on her face. “I won’t do it, and neither will you. If you won’t promise me that, you can’t come with me.”

He could just follow her, he supposes. But she’s right - if they’re going to fight together, they have to trust each other.

Grudgingly: “Alright then. I guess we’ll let him go.”

A small smile breaks across her face. “I guess we have a courser to go kill.”   
He feels his face respond in kind. Inside him, deep down, something in his chest seems to warm. “I guess we do.”


	8. Chapter 8

When the merc had first shown up, Piper had been inclined to throw him out on his ass. He said he knew Alice, but looking at him critically, she’d found it hard to believe the kind-hearted vault dweller she’d met would take up with someone like this. 

But Dogmeat had stepped in, run over to the man, and rubbed up against his leg, wagging his tail. “Hiya, Dogmeat,” the merc had said, rubbing the dog’s muzzle and offering him something from his pocket. Dogmeat scarfed the scrap of squirrel? Brahmin jerky? Whatever it was, he swallowed it whole in the way that dogs do and the patiently sat on his heels, waiting for more.

Piper had stepped in then, in front of Nat, arms crossed. The merc was familiar - his eyes winked brightly under his hat, and Piper may not have been great with names, but she could remember faces. 

And what she had remembered was that this one was trouble.

“Can I help you?” Her voice hadn’t just dripped sarcasm - it turned on the hose and showered in it.

The merc had straightened then. “Like I said, I just parted ways with Alice. She mentioned you at one point and said if I was ever in Diamond City, maybe you could use someone to watch your back.” His voice was light, with a laugh in it, but she could hear an edge underneath. 

“Yeah, right,” Nat had chimed in before Piper could stuff a sock in her. “ _ Everyone _ knows Piper needs someone to keep an eye out for her. What makes you think we’ll believe you?”

That kid was too mouthy for her own good, Piper had thought to herself. But somehow, improbably, the merc had cracked a smile and let out a laugh. A deep one, not tinged by darkness. The smile was nice; it went all the way to his eyes. 

“I figured that’s the way this would go.” They’d both laughed at her, and Piper had felt a deep twinge of annoyance. 

MacGreavy? McGillicuty? Whatever his name was, what Piper had recalled was that he cost an arm and a leg. He might be worth it - or might not, depending on which outfit you talk to - but either way, she was sure she didn’t have the caps to hire him.

“Look, buddy -” she’d started.

“MacCready,” he’d corrected her, and she felt a little flutter at the creases around his eyes.

“MacCready,” and she’d rolled her eyes. “I don’t have the caps.”

His smile had faded then, like he was just starting to figure something out, and it was that more than anything else that made Piper decide to trust him. 

“I’ve already been paid,” he’d said.

They’re about to stop for the night. MacCready has told her that Alice may still be at the Cambridge Police Station with the Brotherhood of Steel. From everything he’s told her about the group, they may not welcome visitors, but it’s been a while, and Piper is anxious to find out how her new friend is doing. Heading up through Cambridge, there’s ferals all around but it’s hard to tell where their voices are coming from in the alleys between collapsed buildings. 

MacCready brings up the rear, rifle out, moving slowly like the cat Piper once had, before it had been eaten by a super mutant. The shadows between the buildings are long and he slinks between them, shoulders lowered and gun raised. As for herself, she’s really more of a talker than a fighter - and how else is she going to investigate a place like Covenant? 

The police station, when they finally find it, is heavily fortified. Two power-armored soldiers stand outside, their faces hidden behind heavy helmets. Both hold laser rifles at attention. 

“Can I help you?” One of them asks, and the irony of that question isn’t lost on Piper.

“Hi there,” she stammers, surprised at how nervous she suddenly feels. “We’re, uh, looking for someone.”

Behind her, Piper hears MacCready snort back a laugh. 

“And who would that be?” The soldier’s voice is undeniably female, but it still sounds a bit like a sentient tin can. Piper files that analogy away for later use. At least she’s getting some great material out of this. 

“Alice Delaney.”

The two human sentry-bots look at each other. Although Piper can’t see their expressions, there’s a noticeable change in their body language. The other soldier nods, and the woman Piper is speaking to gestures them inside.

“It’s your lucky day. She just stopped in to resupply.”

 

* * *

Having civilians in Brotherhood spaces never fails to get Danse irate, and these two are no exception. Apparently the yutzes up front let them in without asking any questions - what if they had been synths? - and now they’re  _ here _ taking up valuable time that belongs to the Brotherhood. This is time she should be spending resupplying, resting, and getting ready to face the courser. There’s no way she’s ready now, and yet she keeps saying they have to leave first thing in the morning.

It’s her son. 

The enormity of that boggles him. He doesn’t remember his own parents, or where he grew up, or much at all before he met Cutler. There’s just the humming, and then Cutler, and scavenging, and Rivet City, and the Brotherhood. He must have had a mother once. He wonders if she would have gone through all this trouble for him.

But now the male civilian is pulling out a pack of cigarettes and there’s something about the shift way he looks that gets under Danse’s skin. He charges over and barely restrains himself from grabbing the boy by the scruff of his neck. 

“You can’t smoke in here. You’ll need to go outside.”

The punk looks up at him, unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. “Nice to see you too, Paladin.”

Danse has a lot of practice keeping his face neutral, and it comes into play now. “Hello again.” He gives the civilian a quick, evaluating look. This man clearly lacks discipline, whatever his strengths are. He might be able to put up a good fight, but Danse has no doubt that he could beat him. “Smoking is not permitted inside this facility.”

The merc puts his hands up in a mocking and yet somehow placating gesture. His lips curl sardonically around his cigarette and Danse has to quash the urge to punch that stupid grin off his face. “Any chance you could show me to the roof?”

With a sigh, Danse jerks his head toward the stairs. Civilians in Brotherhood space really are the worst. “Follow me.” With a last glance at Delaney that Danse is unsure of how to interpret, the merc follows behind him up the rickety stairs. 

The view from the roof at night is remarkable. The glow to the southwest no longer seems as benign as it once did since his return from the Glowing Sea, but the merc seems interested in it. There’s a flash on the roof as the boy lights his cigarette, and then he releases a sigh.

“What’s your name, civilian?” Danse is loathe to leave this boy up here unattended. He might be young and lanky, but there’s still something about him that sets Danse on edge. 

“MacCready, soldier.” Danse isn’t an expert on sarcasm, but he thinks he can detect it in the merc’s voice. “And you are?”

“Paladin Danse.” He doesn’t want to go back in, but standing out here in the cold while the boy smokes is awkward. Danse tries to square himself inside his armor and think about something else, but there’s a smirk working its way across the merc’s face now. “What?”

“You really don’t trust me, do you?” MacCready laughs. It’s not a nice laugh.

“Why would I?” 

“Why wouldn’t you?” MacCready takes a slow drag, never taking his eyes off Danse. When he exhales, something in his demeanor seems to change. “What did she tell you about me?”

“Delaney?”

“Alice.”

“Nothing. Why, should she have?”

Another laugh from MacCready. “No, I guess not.” He breaks eye contact and looks out towards the Glowing Sea. “You’re taking care of her?”

A stupid question. But then - after a moment something slides into place for him. There was something between the two of them. 

Of course. That’s why this merc showed up out of nowhere, looking to say hi to Delaney. Looking like a dog that’s been kicked. That’s why she was so stiff around him downstairs, greeting him without entirely meeting the boy’s eyes and then turning to Piper. 

There’s only one response to this - if Delaney doesn’t want a relationship with him, Danse isn’t going to go against that. “She’s a Brotherhood soldier. She doesn’t need me or anyone else to ‘take care’ of her.”

At that, MacCready finally looks frustrated. He crushes out his cigarette butt and tosses it over the side of the building. “Look, man, just level with me. Just…” he pauses, and for a moment, Danse realizes that he’s seeing inside the other man for the first time. “I owe her. Big. Please...take care of her.”

They stare at each other for a minute, maybe longer. Finally, Danse nods.

“Can do.”

MacCready’s shoulders sag a little in visible relief. “Thank you.”

 

* * *

The beeping of the courser’s signal leads them inside Greenetech Genetics. Like all pre-war buildings she’s visited, this one is a labyrinth of collapsed floors, rubble, and scavenged parts that have been dropped where they lie. And this one, as it turns out, has the added bonus of Gunners shooting up the inside. 

Alice ducks behind a metal desk, looking at the scarred side of it and counting. The Gunner coming towards her was moving at the pace of one step every second and a half, which means in ten seconds he should be level with her. She glances across the aisle at Danse, who gives her one of his classic single nods, and she nods back.

Seven...eight…nine... _ ten _ . 

The Gunner’s boot comes into view and she aims with her .44 up at his chin. The shot is deafening and she doesn’t hear the sound of his body crumple to the floor next to her. This one is wearing sunglasses, and she pulls them off the body, wiping the blood off on the man’s pants and ignoring the look of annoyance Dance gives her. 

In the background, the courser signal beeps faster. 

“We’ve got to be almost there. Perhaps we should discuss strategy.”

She cocks an eyebrow at him and places the sunglasses atop her head, pushing her hair back. “How ‘bout I shoot him till he’s dead?”

It’s clear from Danse’s exasperated expression that he wants more from her. It’s the same look he gave her this morning when she came out in her old leather armor and Kellogg’s jacket. He’d tried to talk her into wearing her power armor but she’d simply shaken her head and unconvincingly tried to explain the limitations of power armor. 

Even now she wasn’t sure how much she believed her own words. It’s true - she’s more agile in her leather armor. But if the courser is everything Virgil and Kellogg seemed to think it is, is she signing her own death notice?

Seeing MacCready again - even though they didn’t speak - has made her feel reckless. There’s something about the way he looks at her that makes her want to do things that aren’t safe, that aren’t smart. There’s something about him that makes her brash. 

It’s not healthy, and she’s old enough to know that.

“Well then...you cut off his exit and I’ll try to pin him down.”

“You want me to flank it?”

She thinks for a moment. What would Nate do?  But she can’t figure it out. Finally she shakes her head. “I guess that’ll do.”

Inside the room are another set of stairs, with the sound of screaming crashing down from above. As Alice runs up the stairs she can hear Danse running behind her. The plan is about to get all shot to hell, she thinks, but there’s no way she can wait for him when people are screaming like that. 

A second voice responds to the screaming in a cool tone. She can’t hear his words over the sound of her own footsteps and breathing, but anyone who’s so calm in the face of someone screaming at them in fear can’t be human. This must be it.

She rounds the corner at full speed and there, through a large doorway, lie the corpse of a Gunner. Unprepared, she trips, goes flying, and lands on her back in the middle of the room.

Looking down at her grand entrance are two bound men in Gunner greens and one nondescript man in a black leather trenchcoat whose face bears no expression.

The courser. 

“There’s no way you’re here for the synth,” the calm voice comes again, out of the mouth of the plain-looking man in leather. “You are a hostile and must be eliminated.”

She watches him raise his weapon, and then sense returns to her. In the moment that he fires, she rolls and for a moment she thinks his laser has missed her. It’s only when she feels the searing in her shoulder that she realizes that not only has he gotten her shoulder but that he’s made a hole clear through her jacket. 

Alice shoots out a leg, kicking him in the shin, trying to unbalance him. But he’s a machine, not a man, and he doesn’t so much as look down. Instead, the courser leans over and places one hand over her throat. With carefully controlled strength, he grabs her by her neck and lifts her even as the panels in his hand begin to crush her windpipe.

The world begins to go hazy as she kicks her legs. Her gun drops from her hand and she hears it land on the metal floor with a dim clatter. 

She’s back in the pod again, watching Nate fight to keep their baby. There’s a scream as the white-suit clad scientist tries to take the baby, and she can hear Nate yell that there’s no way he’ll give them Shaun.

Gasping for air. 

Then there’s a bang, and Nate falls back in his pod.

And then she’s lying on the metal in a heap, gasping and finding air filling her lungs. The world suddenly comes back into sharp focus. Her shoulder hurts. Her neck aches. Her lungs burn. 

But she’s been suffocated before.

Her pistol is under her, and she can hear Danse shooting and the courser returning fire. Everyone seems to have forgotten about her. The gun is cool in her hand, and the barrel digs into her stomach. Her fingers wrap around it, one of them stinging where the skin scraped away when she landed.

One deep breath. Two. Three. Listening to the courser’s distinctive blast the whole time.

She rolls over, crashing into the wall to steady herself, and aims. The wall makes a wonderful crutch, and she uses it to slowly move into a standing position. 

The courser is completely immersed in fighting Danse, so far as she can tell. She aims carefully at its head. It’s standing directly in front of her when she fires five bullets into the back of its neck. 

When it drops to the ground, so does she.

 

* * *

Delaney seems to be doing better after a few minutes of rest. When he’d come around the corner and seen her hanging there, Danse had been surprised by the drop he’d felt in his stomach. It’s not unusual to lose a brother or sister in battle -it’s pretty common, in fact - but there was something about watching her get strangled by that foul machine that had kicked him into high gear.

Now she seems stronger, despite the purple bruise blooming around her throat, and she’s standing at a terminal, trying to hack it. The Gunners the courser had restrained have long since run off. Inside a small room behind them is a girl who doesn’t seem particularly concerned about getting free. 

When she finally gets the right password, Delaney smacks the side of the terminal with a flat palm and lets out a whoop that’s more of a whisper. “I knew I could crack it!” She hisses.

Behind him, the doors slide open, and a small redheaded woman comes out. “Thank you,” she charges past Danse to put her hand on Delaney’s shoulder. “I don’t know what to say. My institute designation is K1-98.”

A synth. This girl is a synth?

Although he tries to keep his expression neutral, Danse can feel his eyebrows narrowing. And then he just asks. “Wait a minute - you’re a synth?”

“Well,” her voice is light, chirpy. “I prefer Jenny.”

“We’re happy to help, Jenny,” Delaney gives him a pointed look over the synth’s shoulder, but Danse is still trying to figure out how this thing is walking and talking and smelling like a real person. This shouldn’t be possible. It shouldn’t be smelling like it - she? - needs a shower. But she - it? - does.   
  


* * *

They’re just a few hours south of Covenent when they stop for the day to make camp. They could probably push through but Piper really wants to arrive rested and with a clear head, and with everything already swirling around in there, that won’t be possible if she doesn’t get some sleep. Dogmeat runs off into the brush to hunt something and then it’s just the two of them by the fire.

“So,” says MacCready.

“So,” she says back.

“Are we ever going to talk about whatever it is that’s going on?”

But that’s the last thing Piper wants, to talk, because she doesn’t know what’s going on or how she feels about it, or if she’s allowed to have any feelings about it. She has too many questions and not enough answers.

She lets out a snicker. Story of her life. 

“I don’t know, MacCready…”

“Come on,” he pats the half-broken lawn furniture on which he sits, indicating that she should join him. “Tell ol’ Mac what’s going on.”

She winces at that. “Really?”

“Ok, yeah,” he laughs. “That was terrible. But really, what’s happening?”

What’s happening is that she let herself get distracted by his twinkly blue eyes and his sarcastic quips and his one-sided smile and forgot who he was. She’d met him before, in the Third Rail, the night she and Magnolia decided to call it quits. She’d found him bragging about stealing from a settlement. She’d thought what a sleaze he was then and she has no reason now to think he’s changed. 

And then there’s the black looks that passed between him and Alice at the police station. There’s something going on there, Piper just hasn’t figured it out yet.

Slowly, the smile on his face starts to fade. “Pipes, what’s wrong?”   
But she shakes her head and gives him a laugh that rings false to both of them. “Nothing. Just tired. Can you take first watch?” And dives into her bedroll. 


	9. Chapter 9

When she’s ready to go, Delaney is supposed to climb onto the platform and give Proctor Ingram a thumbs-up. For some reason, though, she’s just standing in one corner. For this first trip, since they’re not sure what will go and what won’t, she’s wearing just her uniform and some plain leather armor. Kellogg’s old pistol is strapped to her hip. 

To Danse, she looks smaller than usual. It’s not just the fact that she’s not in her power armor - after their second visit to the Glowing Sea, she’s left hers pretty much abandoned in the repair bay. It’s something around the eyes - they’ve always been large and expressive, but he’s not sure he’s ever seen them look this unfocused. A memory of a radstag doe flits up, racing from the knights in his squad as they fired, desperate for fresh meat.

When he steps over to her, she looks up at him, and he can see her trying to keep her chin steady.

“I’m so close, Danse,” she says. Her voice is low and there’s a quaver to her voice that he might miss if he didn’t know better. His heart skips a beat.

“To your boy?”

Instead of speaking, she nods. Her eyes fixate on something over his shoulder. He glances over, and it’s the teleportation platform.

“Then what are you waiting for?”

She drags her eyes back to meet his. For a moment he’s dizzy.

“What if he doesn’t know me?”

Before he knows what he’s doing, Danse brings his hand up under her chin. Her skin is surprisingly soft. He lowers his voice from his usual strident tone and locks his eyes on hers.

“What if he’s been waiting for you? What if he’s dead?” She lets out a choked gasp and her eyes tear up. “You could spend the rest of your life coming up with what-ifs. Or,” and he pauses here for effect. “You could go and find him.”

She closes her eyes in assent. A couple tears, loosened by her long eyelashes, trickle down her cheeks. Under her chin, he can see the violet hand-shaped bruise from the courser. 

“You’re right,” she says, opening her eyes and looking back up at him. “Thank you.”

And then she does the most remarkable thing: she steps up on her toes, places on hand on Danse’s cheek, and pulls his face down to hers. Her lips brush his opposite cheek just for a moment and he can feel a flush go through his face and down his neck. He hopes his skin hasn’t turned too red. Somehow she smells like honey.

All too soon, she moves away from him. “You’re a good friend. I’ll see you soon.”

With that, she’s stepped on the platform and given Ingram the thumbs-up. Danse stands there, willing his legs to move and yet somehow unable to do so. He watches as Ingram flips some switches and clicks some buttons, a flurry of lights turning on and off. A blue light goes on over her head, and some flashes come down. She stands, perfectly still, despite the lightning dancing around her.

Ingram is counting off, and the flashes grow larger and brighter. Even Maxson is shields his eyes with one hand and then Ingram throws the last switch with a shouted, “Stay safe, soldier!”

The flashes coalesce into one large glare, blue and ultraviolet and white. It’s blinding and there’s a crack like the biggest thunderclap he’s ever heard, and when it’s over, he’s momentarily deaf and she’s gone. 

They all stand there in silence for a moment and then Ingram begins moving the machine into standby mode in case Delaney returns. Danse is finally able to move and he walks over, unable to take his eyes off the transmitter platform, the last place he saw her. He’s sure she’ll be safe. She can handle herself.

“That was a hell of a thing,” Ingram murmurs.

“You did a great job building it,” he says back, distracted.

Ingram’s laugh jolts him back to the real world. “I meant that good-bye you got.” She whistles. “ _ Hot _ . I had no idea that was going on between you.”

Danse finally rips his gaze from the platform to look at her, disgruntled. “What does that mean?”

“That kiss.” Ingram waggles her eyebrows and Danse feels his cheek burn. “If she was kissing me like that, you’d better believe she wouldn’t be going anywhere.”

“You know these civilian recruits,” he says huffily, opening the compartment on his arm and pretending the adjust something. He realizes too late that this doesn’t fool Ingram one bit and slams it shut irritably. “I’ll be on the ship,” Danse turns to walk off, leaving Ingram to her laughter.

He and Maxson lock eyes, and it’s clear the younger man is furious. There’s something in the tilt of his head and the disapproving slant to his eyes. Danse breaks away and hurries to a vertibird.

He hopes she’ll be okay. He hopes she’ll bring back good intel. And he wonders what has just changed.

 

* * *

Alice doesn’t hear a thunderclap; instead, the light blinds her but there’s a curious absence of sound. It feels like a thousand little hands grabbing at her, pulling one molecule this way, another that way, and then there’s the curious sensation of everything being pushed back together all at once, something with one body part traveling through another. 

When she comes back together, it’s several seconds before the light subsides and she’s able to see. When she can see and feel everything again, she starts by taking stock - two arms, two legs, and her head appears to be pointing the right way - she’s not looking straight down at her butt, at any rate. Her gun is where it should be, and all her armor, and she seems to have the right number of fingers and toes. When she feels her face, everything seems to be right.

So she’s gotten in - now the first thing she needs to do is pull the requested information for the Brotherhood. 

The transmitter seems to be off a server room. There’s nothing remarkable about it; it’s dark and plain and directly in front of her is a terminal larger than most she’s seen. Putting the holotape in and scanning the network takes barely a few seconds, and then the tape is back in her pocket. One task down.

Now it’s time for the real reason she came here.

And that’s when she hears it:  _ Hello _ .

An intercom is speaking...to her? It seems to come from everywhere and nowhere, all at once, and though she casts her head left and right, she can’t seem to locate the source of the sound. There are no speakers or visible cameras.

_ I wondered if you might make it here. You’re quite resourceful. _

The voice is male, older, cultured. It reminds her of the old world, the one before the war. Her father’s voice. He introduces himself as Father, cementing the comparison, and she knows now that they know she’s here. This voice is speaking to  _ her _ ; there would be no reason for this man to introduce himself when, as he says, he’s in charge of the Institute. 

_ I know why you’re here. _

Alice is looking around, but all the doors are locked. Something about this reminds her of Fot Hagen. Of Kellogg. These Institute bastards and their monologues over a loudspeaker. 

_ Please, step into the elevator. _

And so she does.

 

* * *

Their arrival at Bunker Hill was subdued. Not only was Piper not in the mood for cheering, but Amelia seems worried about too many people noticing her return. Understandable, really, considering the state they found her in, locked in a cage with that madwoman ready to kill her.

Is the girl a synth? Does it even matter?

At one time, Piper would have said that yes, everyone needed to know the truth. But looking in Amelia’s eyes in that cage, she’d begun to wonder. The girl seemed as real as anyone else; who was she to make that judgment?

She rolls over on the thin mattress Old Man Stockton offered her for the night but there’s no comfort to be found here. The mattress is lumpy and her body is a motley collection of bruises and pulled muscles. At her feet, Dogmeat snores softly, blowing a dustball across the battered wooden floor. 

MacCready isn’t in his bed. It has to be past midnight, and he’s not there. Piper should stay in bed, but instead she rises, stretches and immediately regrets it when half her back seizes up. Dogmeat opens one eye as Piper pulls her boots on, then rolls onto his side and promptly goes back to sleep.

“Easy for you,” Piper berates the dog gently as she leaves the room above Stockton’s stall and heads downstairs. If MacCready hasn’t left her hanging, he’ll be Savoldi’s drinking up his caps. 

Indeed, when she gets down there, MacCready is slumped over a barstool, half-awake and singing a song about a butcher, the same one that’s always playing on the radio. His voice is off-key and out of time, and Piper winces when she hears him. Joe Savoldi stands back from the bar, and his face lights up with he sees her. 

“You’ve got to get him out of here,” the old lush tells her. 

At this, MacCready turns, throws his arms wide, and calls, “Piper!” Though he leans in for a hug, she deftly sidesteps him, and he crashes to the floor in a heap. A soft moan comes from the dust cloud he’s thrown up and she has to stifle a giggle.

“He’s driving away all my customers,” Savoldi complains, taking MacCready’s cloudy glass and dumping the contents. When she looks around, it’s empty as it always is, but Piper supposes that  _ could _ be because of Mac. Probably not, though. She wants a drink, though, and so she’s not going to argue with Joe.

“Can I get a drink before I take him off your hands, Joe?” She flashes him her most winning smile, and Joe rolls his eyes and pulls a glass out from under the bar.

“What’ll it be?”

“Whatever’s cold,” earns a laugh from Joe and three fingers’ worth of brown astringent-smelling liquid in a glass that might have been clean sometime in the last year.

Piper doesn’t drink often and downing this is difficult, but she gets through it a little at a time. It’s harsh on her throat but the warmth it creates is soothing. Whenever she closes her eyes, she sees Amelia again, pleading for her life, and it sounds as real as anything Piper has ever felt. Could a synth do that?

Do they know they’re not real?

MacCready is struggling to his feet, and Piper feels a wave of annoyance at him. Why can’t he just get down and stay down?

She catches Joe’s eye and hands him a few caps. “Can I get one for the road?” Joe gives her half a smile and pours a few more fingers in her glass. She gets off her stool and loops an arm under MacCready’s shoulder, helping him to his feet. The glass fits precariously in her opposite hand and, carefully, they make their way back to Stockton’s stall. 

The market is deserted this late, and Piper sets MacCready on a bench and slumps down next to him. Though the world is already unsteady beneath her feet, she takes a fiery sip from her glass and chokes the liquor down. MacCready’s head in heavy on her shoulder.

“You’re so pretty,” he slurs into her ear. He’s trying to kiss her and missing, and suddenly she feels so annoyed at him. When he leans in again, she stands suddenly and lets him crash into the bench face-first. He lets out a low groan that turns into a snore and Piper heads back to her bed.

 

* * *

 

The room where Alice finally finds Shaun is about what she would have expected. It’s sterile-looking and reminds her eerily of the vault. For a flickering second, the boy behind the glass gives her hope, with his dark hair and gray eyes and Nate’s chin. But something is off about him, and it’s not just that he doesn’t know her - how could he, when taken from her so young? She’s not such a fool as to think that her son will know her after all this time.

But there  _ is _ something wrong with him; she knows it immediately. She knows it even before Father comes in the room and shuts him down that this is not her son. She wants to believe it’s him, but there’s that knot in her stomach that tells her something is fishy here. 

And when Father tells her the truth of his improbable existence - that is in fact her son Shaun, and it’s been sixty years since he was taken and not ten - it’s as if the last piece of the puzzle slides into place. Somehow she’s known from the moment he walked into the room, his eyes sympathetic and shaped just like Nate’s, with the crinkle at the corners. Some part of her knew from the moment she heard his voice over the loudspeaker, the measured way he spoke, so like her own father. 

Maybe she’s known since she found out he was  _ here _ , that there was so much more to the story than anyone had grasped. 

No, she’s not surprised. A mother knows things. And a mother will love her son, no matter who - or what - he’s become. 

This old man standing before her, whatever else he is, is still Shaun. He’s still her baby, with his twinkling gray eyes and silvery hair. His voice, though several octaves deeper than she’d last heard it, makes her want to cry, it’s so sweet. There’s an elderly shake to his hand that worries her, and she’s tempted to wrap him in a blanket and get him a hot cup of tea. 

It’s a whirlwind, this unexpected reunion. They speak around each other, and she tries to understand how calm he is about his own abduction even as he shows her what sixty years means to making your peace with your own reality. 

He begins showing her around the Institute, standing just out reach and speaking to her formally. After meeting Allie Fillmore and two other people whose names begin to run together, it dawns on her that he’s seeking her approval. Sixty years have passed - or more than two hundred, depending upon what measurement you’re using - and yet her boy still wants his mother to be proud of him.

Her heart swells in her chest even as she has to swallow bile in her revulsion of what he’s doing here. 

Because there’s no doubt, her son is a slave-trader. Instead of kidnapping people and selling them into slavery, he’s manufacturing them. And worse, so very much worse, he’s created robots who have feelings and personalities and ideas and forced them into servitude. Why would he do that? What is so broken in her own son that he needs to do this?

The questions keep turning around in her head even though she knows the answers, and Alice realizes suddenly that if she stays here any longer she’s going to be sick. 

It’s not exactly the homecoming she’d dreamed of.

 

* * *

The road is dusty and dry. A breeze wafts to him, and Dogmeat puts his nose up in the air. There’s the enticing scent of roasting meat and coupled with it the grotesque, sweaty odor of super mutants. There’ll be no begging for scraps at that camp.

The people seem upset; the RED COAT WOMAN is sulky and quiet, and the GOOFY HAT MAN makes too much repetitive chatter, much of it about his head hurting. He hasn’t even given Dogmeat any jerky today, and usually he’s good for a few pieces. Instead, today is a day of long walks and infrequent stops for water, and he’ll have to hunt later to fill his belly. He hopes they stop somewhere far enough from people to ensure good game.

“Look, Pipes, whatever I did last night to make you so royally pissed off, I’m sorry,” the GOOFY HAT MAN is saying the woman. Dogmeat can’t see her face, but he can hear the sigh the woman gives him.

“Enough, MacCready, I already told you not to worry about it.”

“But you’re clearly still mad at me.”

“I just drank too much,” the RED COAT WOMAN snarls. Dogmeat shies away from her to the other side of the GOOFY HAT MAN, where it feels more safe. He’s got the smell of nervous sweat about him, as well as the acidic aroma that Dogmeat knows comes from the sick-making water. 

The man shrugs, his coat flapping in the wind. “Ok, if you say so.”

That’s when Dogmeat hears the first beep. The people are engrossed in their argument and the RED COAT WOMAN is flipping her hair. 

Another beep follows, and the musky super mutant smell grows stronger. Dogmeat stops dead in his tracks at the third beep and lets out a whine.

“Cmon, Dogmeat, let’s go,” the man says impatiently, gesturing, even as the fourth beep comes, a little closer to the last. In the distance, there’s a dull roar.

Danger is coming. The bad smell monsters are coming, and that beeping thing is no good. Another beep sounds, and another.

The woman has stopped and is yelling at the man, and what is wrong with these people, can’t they hear what’s coming? In frustration, Dogmeat lets out a bark.

“What is it, Dogmeat?” They both yell in unison. In the quiet afterwards, the woman cocks her head and it dawns on her. If Dogmeat wasn’t so nervous, he’d give her a tail wag, but instead all three of them take off in the opposite direction at a run, the two of them following him.

Even fleeing from danger, there’s something wonderful about the running. Through the brush, under a pile of rubble, and behind a small shack. Down an embankment, over a fence. There’s the smell of the water ahead, and crabs, and Dogmeat can feel his people behind him, and when the beeping recedes, his heart stops hammering in his chest.

“Are we safe?” The GOOFY HAT MAN asks her. 

The RED COAT WOMAN nods. “I think so.”

They’re crouched behind a wall somewhere down near the river. It’s not safe here - Dogmeat can smell the crabs deep in the river - but it’s better than being caught by the beeping monster. 

“Hey MacCready?” The woman says, straightening and dusting off her coat.

“Yeah?” He’s lit a cigarette, and Dogmeat shifts upwind, away from the smoke. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too, Pipes.”

“Let’s get to Goodneighbor before dark,” she says starting down a different road. “I need a drink,”

A laugh from him. “Me too, Pipes.”   
  


* * *

When she came back, Knight Delaney didn’t say a word to anyone. She handed the holotape to Ingram and stalked up to a vertibird and took it to the Prydwen. Danse didn’t see any of this - it was after his watch and he was in his quarters, getting ready for bed, which is why he was surprised when the door opened and she walked in, a brown bottle in her hand. 

She sinks onto his bed and take three long drinks before offering it to him. Danse isn’t normally much of a drinker - dulled sense aren’t really his thing - but there’s something in her body language that tells him she doesn’t want to be alone. 

He debates with himself, then sits about a foot away from her on the bed. The whiskey is Brotherhood issue, good stuff. It goes down smoother than the rotgut he used to find before he joined up. It goes down easily, and leaves his belly warm. 

Delaney is playing with her husband’s ring on its chain again, sliding it back and forth distractedly, It goes to the left, then the right, then back again. Her body is so still he wonders for a moment if she’s fallen asleep, but then she reaches over and takes the bottle. She drinks for what seems like a long time, then hands it back to him.

Finally an eternity later, she speaks: “I found him.”

He’d been afraid to ask, and still is, based on her reaction, so he says nothing.

She takes the bottle back and takes another drink. Shoves it back into his hand. When she speaks again, her voice is slurred.

“He’s their ‘director’.” Danse has never heard a word spoken with such disappointment. Such malice. “My son creates slaves.” A bitter laugh escapes her lips. “My son builds fake humans and enslaves them and he wants me to be proud of him.”

She’s giggling now, but there's a hysterical edge to it. For his part, Danse is horrified. Her own son is in charge of the Institute. He usually doesn’t keep things to himself, but in this moment, Danse realizes that anything he says will be wrong. For some reason, this leads him to decide to wrap one arm around her shoulder, moving the bottle to his other hand to do so. 

Delaney slumps against him, her shoulders drooping. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen her look quite so defeated. 

“Hey Danse?”

“Yes?” He looks down at the top of her head, at the buttery curls there. His sleeve is a little wet where her tears have leaked out. At least, he hopes it’s from tears and not drool.

“You took off your power armor.” His arm muffles her voice.

“Uh, yeah. I do that occasionally.”

“It’s a nice look for you.” He takes another swig from the bottle, trying to tell himself that the warming in his chest is from the liquor, and not from what she’s just said.

“We should get you back up to your bunk, Knight,” he tells her. She sits up, wiping her eyes. They’re still bloodshot, but she looks a little steadier despite the whiskey she’s drunk. “Tomorrow we’ll have a lot of work to do.”

“You’re right,” she says as she straightens her uniform. “We have to start planning to kill my son.”   
With a squaring of her shoulders, she’s gone. Watching her go, and thinking of what she said, Danse takes another drink. 


	10. Chapter 10

The next morning, Delaney says nothing to him. Her hair is scraped back into a bun, giving her a more Brotherhood-friendly look. There are dark circles under her eyes, like bruises, and the burn on her forehead and scar over her eye stand out angrily. Her skin is paler than usual from lack of sleep and the bruise from the courser is a dark smear on her milky throat.

Her eyes are like steel. 

She says nothing to Danse about what she said the night before; indeed, she says very little to him at all. When he catches up to her in the mess, she’s picking at an almost green Salisbury Steak. Delaney sets her fork down when he approaches and she flicks her eyes up at him. Without the soft curls framing her face, he can see how angular she’s become. 

“Maxson wants to see us,” he says to her quietly. Something flickers across her face, something he can’t read. She doesn’t respond, but after a moment stands and marches out to the command deck. He follows.

Although he’s never seen one in person, obviously, Danse once saw an exhibit in some museum in the Capital featuring a jungle cat, stuffed and posed in a crouch, tail held high and mouth in a permanent snarl. Maxson somehow always reminds him of this, despite the disparate memory Danse carries of him as a little boy.

Maxson paces the command deck now, brows furrowed, looking for all the world like that cat. His burly shoulders are tense under his massive coat and he frowns at them both when he gives the order. 

She’s to go back to the Institute. She’s to recruit Madison Li. 

Danse has a dim memory of Dr. Li. He’d barely met her when she took off for the Commonwealth, for the exciting scientific community of the Institute. He has a dim memory of small woman, Asian, with fine bones and a snotty tone to her voice. 

Although nothing changes in Delaney’s posture or demeanor, Danse can see she doesn’t want to go. Or maybe it’s just what they discussed last night. 

“You did say you’re free to come and go at our debriefing,” Maxson answers the statement neither of them made. “We need her for a project we’re working on.”

Liberty Prime, Danse realizes. They brought it. 

They really are going to war.

Finally, quietly, when Maxson is done speaking, Delaney speaks. He’d thought she would argue, that she might say something about her son or being unable to go back, but all she says is a quiet, “Yes, sir. May I be excused?”

“You’re dismissed,” Maxson waves a hand at her, every inch the general. She turns on her heel and walks out. “Now as for you -” And the younger man turns to Danse, meets his eyes.

What Danse sees there is terrifying. The black look Maxson gave him the day before is nothing compared to this.

“What is going on between the two of you?” This again.

“There’s nothing happening there, sir,” Danse begins, honestly. “I am her commanding officer and she is an excellent soldier and friend.”

The glower on Maxson’s face recedes a little. “See to it that it remains that way. We’re too close to our goal for you to ruin it by sleeping with a recruit, especially one so valuable to our mission.” He turns and stalks to the window, arms laced behind his back.

Danse is offended, and tries not to show it. “Sir?”

Maxson turns around and looks at him again. “Yes, Paladin?”

“Have I done something to make you question my loyalty to the Brotherhood or our mission?”

At this, Maxson finally softens. “No, Paladin.” A deep sigh. He unlaces his arms, and for a moment, Danse sees how young Maxson really is. How big a toll leadership is taking on him. He wonders briefly is perhaps it’s all just too much for such a young man, even one raised up to it like Arthur. “No, you have always been steadfast.”

“Thank you sir.”

“You’re dismissed.” Maxson turns back to the large window, back straight.

 

* * *

The Third Rail looks shabbily glamorous as always. Ham was hesitant to let them both in, citing some past trouble with MacCready, but waves Piper and Dogmeat through without issue. After a few minutes of wheeling and dealing, she was able to do absolutely nothing and instead MacCready headed off to the Rexford to secure a room for them for the night. 

It’s not usual for Piper to be unable to convince someone to do what she wants. She must be losing her touch, she thinks as she takes a long swallow of something clear and astringent at the bar. For all Charlie’s talk about drinking beer and only beer, there’s always something else to be had, if you’re willing to deal with whatever it is.

The way she’s feeling tonight, with the questions swirling in her mind, there’s no doubt that she needs something more than beer. A lobotomy wouldn’t be out of the question -

Her thoughts are interrupted by the swish of fabric as someone settles onto the seat next to her. Magnolia. When did the music stop?

The older woman greets her with a smile. “If it isn’t my favorite reporter,” she purrs.

Despite their history, Piper finds herself tongue-tied. She really must be losing it, she ponders dimly, taking her eyes from Magnolia’s face and staring into her glass.

“Hey Mags,” she starts, then stops. What is there to say? She has so many things she’s trying to understand she’s not sure Magnolia is the one to help her pars them.

But why is she here, if not to talk?

“I ask myself what a little bird like you is doing down here,” Magnolia starts again. “But I think I know.” There’s something predatory and welcome about the hand she places casually over Piper’s.

Oh. Yeah.  _ That’s _ why.

Best to just get on with it, then. Forgetting isn’t always easy.

Piper forces a grin. “I know we said it was over, Mags, but any chance for um, an...encore?” Her smile is flirty, and though she knows she sounds awkward, they both know she knows exactly what she’s doing. She runs her eyes carefully from Magnolia’s soft ruby lips down her narrow throat and bites her lip as she reaches those firm breasts so many  have dreamed about.

Magnolia’s laugh is a precious thing; it’s clear as a bell, tinkling in the pit that is the Third Rail.

“I’ll get my coat,” she says, rising.

The walk back to the Rexford is fast, and cold. A light snow is beginning to come down. Piper read that once there were thick snows that blanketed the Commonwealth, but now they only occasionally get a sprinkle. She wonders what a heavy snow would be like.

Inside the hotel room, things are easy and familiar enough. Magnolia never wears anything under her gowns, so it’s a simple matter of lifting the flimsy straps of her shoulders and watching the dress fall to her feet. When she steps out of it, there’s a whisper of fabric and then Magnolia stands there in all her glory, wearing nothing but impractically shiny black heels. 

“Now you,” she murmurs. The woman never speaks above a purr. It’s one of the things that excites and annoys Piper in equal turns. 

Dogmeat lets out a whine and they both turn. The dog sits by the door, looking for all the world like this is bugging him, one ear turned to the side. Piper crosses and lets him out, nudging him out with one gentle boot. 

When she turns, Magnolia is right there, pressing her back up against the closed door. The singer reaches up and pulls Piper’s hat off, tossing it aside. The scarf is next - Magnolia unfurls it from her neck slowly and wraps herself in it before perching on the bed. With her ample breasts covered and legs crossed, she could almost be one of those old paintings, Piper muses as she unbuckles her jacket and drops it to the floor.

Her shirt, her pants, her boots, all join the pile of clothes, and when she sits on the bed, Magnolia’s practiced hand slides between her legs. At the familiar touch, Piper can feel herself grow wet; one of Magnolia’s slim fingers slip her panties to one side and slides between the folds. A smile dances across her face.

“You’ve missed me,” she says, softly, leaning down to kiss Piper’s shoulder. 

A finger darts inside of her, and Piper closes her eyes for a moment. Her hand drifts up to caress Magnolia; one of those perfect breasts is too big for her small hand, but she rubs it gently, her thumb on the nipple, her fingers dancing across the soft pale flesh. Magnolia moans against her and forces her back on the bed.

“That’s wonderful, darlin’ but I know you can to forget something. Let’s see if I can help you with that,” and then Magnolia’s mouth is on her, over her panties, warm and wet and suckling. Her hands reach up to Piper’s narrow hips and those fingers grab the edges of her panties. Pulling them down only takes a moment, and then her mouth is back on Piper, her fingers reaching inside and teasing her. 

There’s nothing for Piper to do with her hands, and for a moment she remembers that this is part of why she and Mags called it quits - the woman is like a machine when she gets going, and doesn’t seem to care a but for taking her own pleasure. It feels so one-sided.

But then Magnolia’s inserted a second finger, and her tongue is moving over Piper’s clit, and she raises her hips in rhythm to the singer’s gentle laps. Her tongue becomes more forceful, and there’s a feeling of suction, of pulling, and Piper feels a moan ripped from her throat. She’s grabbing at  the mattress, but she can’t seem to stop the wave of pleasure, of  _ pressure _ , building inside of her and suddenly, her hands have a life of their own, and she’s wrapped her own fingers in Magnolia’s silky dark hair, pale in the black strands. Her hips rise up to meet Magnolia’s face, and there’s a third finger slid into her, moving quickly and roughly inside of her -

And then stars.

When she becomes aware of herself again, Magnolia is sitting, fully-clothed, in a chair across the room, a knowing smirk on her face. Somehow, her hair and make-up are perfect. Piper must have been out longer than she thought. The singer holds a cigarette in one hand and a glass of whiskey in the other. The smoke curls around her, making her look like a sexy dragon.

Sexy dragon? Boy, she must be more tired and burned out than she thought, Piper muses.

“Have you forgotten whatever it is your little brain has been stumbling over?” There’s no malice in the question; Magnolia looks pretty self-satisfied. 

Slowly, it dawns on Piper that she’s still naked. She should get up. She should get dressed, and try to start her day. There’s a lot of things she should do, but instead she flops back on the bed and stares at a crack in the ceiling. 

Magnolia’s laugh comes again. “Guess not.”

“Mags,” Piper starts, no longer nervous. “If they don’t know they’re a synth and think they’re the real deal, who is it hurting?”

“I’m afraid I don’t get your question,” there’s still a hint of a laugh in Magnolia’s voice. 

Piper tries again. “If a synth isn’t replacing someone, and they don’t know they’re a synth, and they’re just living their life and trying to be like everyone else...does that make it okay?”

She can hear Magnolia take a sip of her drink. “You’re asking if they become real if it doesn’t hurt anyone?”

That sounds about right. For a moment, Piper thinks of a book she found once: The Velveteen Rabbit, about a toy that becomes a real rabbit, and not the kind she knows, but one without vicious fangs. A pre-war rabbit. They must have been nice.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“I’m sure I’m not the one to answer these questions,” another laugh. “Why don’t you ask your young man?” Then, before Piper knows what’s happened, the door clicks shut and she realizes she’s alone; Magnolia’s gone back to the bar and her questions remain.   
  


* * *

 

The next few weeks pass in a blur of activity. Delaney returns to the Institute and then back to the airport. They’re immediately dispatched to find something or other for Liberty Prime, a magnet or something from a hospital. Danse isn’t in the habit of asking too many questions and after his talk with Maxson, less so. Despite the way things were left, he still isn’t sure what his footing is in the Brotherhood and he feels - for the first time since he joined up - nervous.

Delaney, on the other hand, seems to dawdling. She wants to go into every building, scavenging junk as she goes. She stops shying away from fights and instead jumps into them in a way that almost scares Danse and, on more than one occasion, infuriates him.

In the meantime, she doesn’t speak to him. She’s not silent, but speaks the minimum required to accomplish their tasks. She’s competent, but no more.

He wonders sometimes if she got a similar talk from Maxson, and that’s why things are so uncomfortable, but then he thinks of the weight of her head on his shoulder and the tears soaking through his sleeve and remembers what she carries in her heart. 

Today, as they’re getting ready to head out to the Glowing Sea again - looking for nukes this time - he finds her sitting on the end of a pier not far from the airport as the sun starts to drop. Her boots sit beside her, and she’s rolled up the legs of her uniform to dangle her feet in the water. The wind blows her hair back from her face and he finds something about the piece of beachgrass stuck in one of her curls strangely endearing. She doesn’t turn as he navigates the broken parts of the pier to sit beside her. He takes off his boots and rolls the socks inside them, and drops his feet into the icy water, stifling a gasp.

“I took him to the beach once,” Delaney says when Danse settles next to her. She doesn’t take her eyes off the horizon, turning black as the sun sets behind them. The waves lap gently at the sand beneath them. He wonders idly if this is how it was, before the war. 

“Your son?”

She nods, still not looking at him. “We spent the day there, just a few weeks before the bombs dropped.” Her voice catches but her eyes are clear; no tears to be seen. “I kept building him sandcastles and sticking seashells in the sand. And he kept coming along behind me, knocking everything down.”

When Danse looks down, away from the horizon, he sees her twisting something in her lap, her fingers turning around and around. After a minute, he realizes it’s a scrap of white fabric with a pattern of sailboats on it. 

“What’s his name?”

She’s quiet and he thinks maybe she won’t answer, but then: “Shaun. It was my father’s name.” She swallows visibly and before he can think about what he’s doing, Danse lifts his hand and places it on her back. For a moment he wonders what the others might think if they see, but she’s looking down at the fabric and fighting the tears and so instead he moves it in a slow circle, trying to soothe her.

“I kept telling myself,” she swallows again, and lifts her head to look out at the water. It expands beyond them, goes on and on. “I kept telling myself,” she starts again, “that knocking things down like that was just normal baby behavior. But now I wonder if he was just always broken…”

“I’m sure that’s not it.” Danse’s voice is quiet but it seems to take her by surprise. When she looks at him, he gains strength, and continues. “You’re a good mother. This isn’t because of you. At least you fought to find him. It’s not your fault that you came too late.”

Delaney lets out a shaky laugh. “He’s the one who thawed me out. If he hadn’t done it when he did, I may have stayed frozen forever.”

Danse isn’t sure how to handle this information. Who does something like that?

But then, none of her story makes much sense. It’s not her fault that it’s all so crazy; this is just the way things have happened to her.

Around them, the ocean laps softly; the tide is coming in. A breeze blows gently and the smell of the salt tickles inside his nose. His feet are cold in the water, as he’s sure hers are, but he’s not going back to the Prydwen until she does. She leans gently into the hand he’s placed on her back, and he stiffens slightly, giving her the support to stay upright. Somehow, this turns into her leaning into his shoulder and his arm around her. 

“My husband would have liked you,” she says softly, so softly he almost doesn’t hear her over the breeze. Overhead, the sky is getting darker, the orange retreating behind them. 

He feels a sudden and not entirely unwelcome urge to kiss the top of her head but settles for taking a stealthy sniff of her hair. “Why’s that?”

“Well, he was in the military. He had just come back from the war not too long before…you know. He would’ve known how to handle all this better.” She reaches across his lap and gently takes his opposite hand in both of hers, inspecting it. “His hands were like yours: strong, scarred.” Danse looks down at his own hand in interest, trying to see what she sees there, but it’s just his hand. Still, at the feel of her smaller fingers - cold, like ice - lacing between his own, he feels a small thrill.

A beach in winter. Who would have thought?

 

* * *

The story about Covenant went over well enough, but MacCready was surprised by the change in tone towards the synths potentially being held in cages in that bunker. Not long after publication - just two days, in fact - he comes back to Publick Occurrences from Power Noodles full to bursting and dreaming of putting his feet up and sleeping off all the starch only to find Piper packed up and ready to go. 

Something seems different about her; she looks happy where just a couple hours before she’d had that look she’d worn for days: sour, sullen, and depressed. 

“Where’re we headed this time?”

She grins up at him. “I want to follow the Freedom Trail. I think it’s time we help out.”

“Freedom Trail?” He sputters, all thought of how full he was and ideas of a nap gone. “That means...going through the Commons.”

“What’re you, chicken?” And then she winks at him. 

_ She _ winks at  _ him _ . 

Well, after that, he would follow her anywhere. 


	11. Chapter 11

The Mark-28 nukes aren’t as difficult to find as Virgil was. With the map on Delaney’s Pip-Boy, it takes almost no time at all for them to locate the Sentinel Site. Inside is a maze, with alarms going off, lights cycling, and feral ghouls at every turn. They haven’t been there long when Danse receives a message from Maxson.

_ Send Delaney back with first round of nukes on bird. Stay until mission is complete. Elder. _

Maxson has never been one for many words. 

One way is blocked by rubble; another route is impassable due to a collapsed walkway. They circle around, their footfalls echoing in the quiet once Delaney worked her magic and shut down the alarm. The ferals find them easily but are rebuffed fairly well by the knights’ firepower. There’s one nut from the Children of Atom waiting for them with an assaultron, but Delaney has pulled off her helmet by then (“I can’t breathe in this thing,” she’d told him) and is able to sweet-talk him into letting them pass. In fact, the crazy takes his robot and goes off back into the hellhole outside.

Danse goes through the motions, following her through the site, killing hostiles as they come up, and generally doing as he always has. And yet, inside, in the back of his mind, some part of him keeps returning to the feeling of her hands holding his, tracing a scar he’s had for so long it’s practically become wallpaper. He keeps turning over the question of his talk with Maxson, of the comments Ingram keeps dropping: is there something more here?

She’s competent, and that’s certainly important. He can no longer deny to himself that the way she swings into the power armor is sexy. And Delaney is smart: she can work through situations and make excellent decisions on the fly; her understanding of people is such that she could sell ice to an eskimo (whatever that meant; he’d overheard it once and understood the meaning, even if he hasn’t any clue what an eskimo was). 

When they walk into the storage bay, he’s blown away by the scale of what they’ve found. There’s enough Mark-28s here to keep Prime armed for the foreseeable future. They’ll certainly be able to quite a bit of damage to the Institute like this. He can’t help it; a smile spreads across his face and when she turns back, he’s grinning.

Apparently it’s infectious; she’s smiling too, for the first time...maybe ever? He’s not sure he’s ever seen her smile before. It looks familiar; he must have at some point. It’s been so long, though, he can’t recall when, or what the context for it was.

He kneels and sets the distress pulser, and turns it on. 

“When the bird gets here, you’re to ride back with the first load while I keep the stockpile secure for a future trip,” he tells her. At that, something in her face changes a little; her smile wilts. 

“I don’t know, Danse - shouldn’t I stay with you? As backup?”

He shakes his head. “Negative; Maxson’s orders.”

Now her smile has definitely deflated. “What’s going on there?”

“I don’t understand the question.” Between them, the distress pulser light blinks. 

“He...doesn’t seem to like me much,” she looks like there’s more she wants to say, but stops, waiting for his response.

Danse sighs, relaxes his posture inside his power armor. “Maxson is - very intense. He has high hopes for you, though.” 

Something dark flashes in her eyes. “Are you sure about that?”

“Yes, absolutely,” he replies with more certainty than he actually feels. He keeps thinking of that moment on the command deck, and Maxson grilling him about his relationship with the new recruit.

The relationship he’s now wondering about. 

She bites her lip and looks away. 

“You should probably head back to the surface,” he gestures to the door. “I’ll keep this area secured.”

When she flicks her eyes back at him under those dark lashes, his heart stops for a moment. She takes a step closer to him, pistol held casually at her side, and then another, and then she’s leaning forward, straining against her power armor, and she’s kissing him.

He’s surprised but also, somehow, not at all. It seems everything has been building to this for him; he’s amazed that it’s happening but also has known it would. 

It’s just the last thing falling into place. 

The kiss itself is intense; her lips are softer than they have any right to be, and they part slightly to let his tongue into her mouth. He tries to remember the last time he kissed a woman and fails; it’s been so long he legitimately can’t remember the last time he did it.

And yet -

His gun falls to the floor with a clatter. Dangerous, sloppy. He doesn’t care. He puts his hands behind her head, crushing her face against his. There’s a flicker going from his lips through his chest and to some dark place inside, lighting him up. Her tongue is soft against his, but combative, and his fights back. A soft moan comes from her and his fingers are tangled in her hair and it’s everything he always thought it would be, even when he didn’t realize he wanted this. 

Somehow they manage to disentangle themselves, and he realizes she’s shaking inside her suit. Shaking and laughing, and for a moment he thinks she’s laughing at  _ him _ and then he realizes she’s  _ happy _ . 

He’s happy. 

“What was that for?” It’s a stupid question, but he has to hear her say it.

But she’s not going to give him the satisfaction; she looks away, then back up at him, and he’d glad he’s wearing the power armor because his knees are jelly. “For luck,” she says, and turns. 

“Delaney - wait, no, Alice,” he calls after her, and she turns. 

Then they’re together again, his lips on hers and the smell of her all around him. It’s shorter this time, but no less intense; it’s a pact, a vow, an oath. 

It’s a  _ promise _ .

“I should go up top,” she says, her voice low and husky and there’s something in her eyes that makes him want to kiss her again, but she pulls away. “I’ll meet you on the ship.”

She turns and begins to walk away. At the doorway she pauses, helmet in hand, and calls back to him, “I’ll be waiting in your quarters.” Then she pulls her helmet on and calls the lift.

His heart is singing. And it keeps singing right up until the two paladins in power armor grab his arms, and one of them bellows, “Come with us,  _ M7-97 _ .”

 

* * *

 

They’ve been with the Railroad for...a week now? Maybe two? No, not that long. And in that whole time, Piper has been in her element. She and Deacon drag him to some meeting at an overpass. They run errands for Tinker Tom. And MacCready finds himself wondering what’s come over him - why is he still here?

There’s no caps being offered for this work. He doesn’t have any feelings either way about the Institute or synths. Aside from getting to go out and shoot things that are trying to kill him, there’s really nothing in this for him.

And then Piper will look at him, flash him a winning smile, and he’s just...putty in her hands. 

MacCready may not be the brightest, but he’s no fool - he knows how one-sided their relationship is. He knows he’s pining for her; she gets by with little more than a little knowledge and a lot of bravado, and there’s something incredibly intoxicating about that. He’s even quit drinking - well, almost.

At night, Piper sits writing, writing, writing. She hunches over a candle in the crypt the Railroad is using as their home base, changing names and locations, compiling a story from the notes she’s been cobbling together for the last however many days. He hopes, for the first time, that he comes out looking like a hero.

They don’t like him smoking in the crypt itself and it’s too dangerous to let him smoke outside or even in the church, so he’s taken to smoking in the sewer off the escape tunnel. The smoke hangs in there, and two hundred year-old shit doesn’t smell particularly good, but it’s a quiet place to escape to every so often instead of tripping over all the people in HQ. 

He’s out there, taking a nip from his flask and enjoying a smoke when the door creaks open and Piper appears around the corner. 

“Geez, MacCready, what’re you smoking out here, brahmin dung?”

He laughs, choking on the smoke, and flashes the cigarette pack at her as he tries to compose himself.

“Yeah, that looks real healthy,” she cracks, and her smile is so lovely it breaks his heart. 

But he knows - he’s seen her with Deacon. Always laughing together, touching each other when they talk. He’s known enough women to know what’s happening there.

And he has to let her go.

“What do you want, Piper?” He tries not to sound short, and fails. Her face falls.

“I just wanted to let you know we’re getting ready to move out. Tom’s got another place for us to put M.I.L.A. Sorry to bother you.” The door slams shut behind her.

“Fuck,” he spits, dropping his cigarette in the murky water and going after her. He catches the door, pushing it open so hard it smacks the wall to one side before it closes behind him. Piper is already halfway down the stairs when he grabs her arm, and she turns, her face contorted.

“What the fuck, MacCready? Now you’re following me in here to give me a hard time?”

“No, Piper, that’s not -”

But she’s on a tear, and when she gets started, she’s impossible to stop. “You know, you didn’t have to come here with me, and you sure as hell didn’t have to stay. You’re just like I thought you were, in everything just for yourself! Well, you can just pack your shit up and head back to Goodneighbor or Diamond City or hell for all I care because I don’t need you and don’t see any reason why you should stay. Just get o-”

“What about because I love you?”

She stops, mouth agape as she stops mid-sentence, something he’s sure has never happened before, not in the history of the world. Her face turns red and then suddenly his cheek is stinging where she'd slapped him.

“That’s not funny!”

“It wasn’t supposed to be.” It wasn’t even really supposed to come out, although it’s true. He hadn’t planned on telling her, but he didn’t want her running back to the others and telling them he was gone, because then who’d watch her back?

She might never love him, but he could still keep her safe.

“It wasn’t?” Her face softens; her eyes become wide. She looks like she’s trying to process a lot of things at once, and finally she drops her gaze to the floor. MacCready realizes she’s still holding her arm and lets it go; she massages it distractedly with the opposite hand. “I guess...I have some things to think about.”

They both stand, somehow embarrassed, staring at opposite walls. Finally, she speaks again.

“Be ready to go in an hour.”

“Will do,” he says, and when she turns and marches away, he lets a grin flicker across his face.

 

* * *

Alice has to do everything in her power to wipe the grin off her face when she climbs out of her power armor, leaving it in bay 3, as usual. She can’t walk around with that smile; people will  _ know _ . She’s not entirely sure why that would be bad, or how she knows it, but she knows instinctively that the Brotherhood will disapprove.

She tightening a bolt on the left leg with a squire runs up to her, out of breath. The boy stammers something that sounds like “Maxson,” but it’s enough to get the message. Alice stands, stretches, and the gold ring on her left hand catches her eye, glinting in the dim light of the main deck. 

Nate would approve. She knows it, as much as she knows anything. He would’ve hated MacCready, but he would like Danse; the man is steady and always puts others first. He’s protected her, but she has no doubt he would let her protect him, if it came to it. 

The squire is still standing at her side, anxiously looking at her, and she turns back to him, waving him away. “I’m going, I’m going,” she tells him, trying to get her feet under her and a serious expression on her face. Already a knight she doesn’t know is giving her an odd look.

Walking to the ladder up to the command deck is surreal - it feels like people are staring at her. There’s a junior-high sensation of people whispering as she passes; it makes her skin prickle. She has to keep reminding herself that no one else from the Brotherhood could have seen what happened; the paladins who went into the site rode the elevator down and wouldn’t have seen her kiss him. 

The ladder’s rungs clang under her feet as she goes up to meet Maxson, and she pauses for a moment, a hand on her lips, feeling the spot where he kissed her, feeling the tingle all the way to her toes. Then she opens the hatch and climbs up, and before her, framed in front of the Commonwealth, is Maxson.

As usual, he looks angry. As usual, it feels like it may be at her.

“Is there anything you wish to tell me, Knight?” It’s never good when conversations start that way, and Alice knows that. She’s already on the defensive, and the smile finally completely falls from her face.

“Am I...being accused of something?” Her brain has gone into overdrive, running through the laws and statutes against workplace harassment that likely mean nothing in this brave new world.

“That remains to be seen,” Maxson hisses. His eyes are dark and it feels like they are boring through her. “Proctor Quinlan completed the decryption of the data you retrieved from the Institute.”

Inside she heaves a sigh of relief. Whatever it is he thinks she’s done, it’s not the one thing she actually did do. It takes her a moment to wrap her head around the next thing he says, though. There’s something about missing or escaped synths, and DNA, and then suddenly, she catches on to what he’s saying. 

_ Danse _ . They have reason to believe Danse is a synth. 

It’s enough to make her laugh, but she doesn’t. 

“That’s...well, that’s impossible,” she tells him, but her brain is already putting two and two together. Somehow it does make sense.

“I’m afraid not,” and for a moment Maxson truly does look conflicted. “The evidence is quite damning.”

And then they get to the crux of it: he wants her to kill him. Danse. Maxson wants her to kill Danse. He even offers her a promotion.

She understands the words, but somehow the content keeps eluding her. Danse. She’s supposed to kill Danse because he’s a synth. Maxson has ordered her to do it and he wants to promote her to some fancy-sounding position if she does it. 

If she kills Danse.

Inside, she’s screaming. Inside, she’s wondering how everything has gotten so fucked up  _ again _ , how she’s found someone, finally found him and he’s right and then he’s supposed to die, only she’s the one who’s supposed to do it. Inside, she’s going to be sick.

On the outside, she’s telling Maxson that she understands the orders and carefully avoiding agreeing to do them. She’s going to meet with Proctor Quinlan to get an idea of where Danse might have done, which turns out to be anywhere. She might have gone on like this indefinitely, inside and outside mirror opposites, if Haylen hadn’t burst into the room, shouting everything she should have said. 

“What is this crap about Danse being a synth?” Haylen’s face is flushed; she’s been running. A lock of strawberry blonde hair has escaped her ponytail and hood and sticks to her cheek.

Quinlan, as always, is stiff to the point of being stereotype of a standard Brit. If it weren’t for the severity of the situation, Alice might have laughed. “I assume your outburst was a reference to some...doubt regarding Danse’s identity.” There’s an edge to his tone. It’s a warning, even if Haylen is too angry to hear it. “I can assure you my findings are quite accurate, Scribe.” Again, the same warning.

And Haylen doesn’t hear it. She wants to fight for Danse the way Alice does, but she’s braver or more foolish perhaps; she’s less scared of the consequences. She turns to Alice, and the rage in her face is clear. 

“So...he sets Danse up and then you knock him down, is that it?” There’s something in her expression - a dare, maybe. Alice wants to take the bait.

“I don’t like your tone,” Alice says, trying to figure out if she’s playing along or needling Haylen unnecessarily. 

“I know you’ve been sent to hunt him down,” Haylen shoots back. If she’s acting, she’s very good at it. Alice can’t decide what’s happening here, or how many games she’s playing. It’s exhausting.

“Orders are orders,” Alice says back, more for Quinlan’s benefit than anything else. She’s never going to be able to help him if she’s stuck here for resisting. 

“Orders are orders?” Haylen spits. “That’s all you have to say?” She sighs. “There’s obviously been a mistake and we need to get to the bottom of this.” And for the first time, Haylen meets her eyes. 

She knows something. She knows something, and she might be willing to share.

There’s more back-and-forth, Quinlan scolds Haylen again, and she finally acquiesces. She has a lead. She’s willing to hand it over, but she wants Alice to follow her to a vertibird back down. Alice agrees to follow her, but instead finds herself in the belly of the Prydwen, deeper than she’s ever gone alone, and Haylen turns to her, her face alight.

“Do you actually plan on killing Paladin Danse?”

“That’s a risky question, don’t you think?” Alice leans back, suddenly at ease. In the politics of the Brotherhood, she’s not always sure when she’s with friends, but alone with Haylen, she can feel the effortless connection she’s noticed with the scribe before. 

Haylen laughs, a little bitterly. “I’m glad you played along up there. I didn’t know how else to get your attention.”

This time Alice laughs, though there’s little funny about this situation. “Well, you got it. How did you know....”

“It was safe to trust you? Oh,” Haylen smiles a little, “I know there’s something special between you two. I’ve known him ten years and I’ve never seen him look at a woman the way he looks at you.”

Butterflies. It’s been so long since she felt them beating gently inside her ribs, and yet, there they are. It’s a completely inappropriate time to consider how he feels about her, or to feel such joy, but there it is. 

“So,” her voice is thick and Alice takes a moment to clear her throat, trying to avoid Haylen’s knowing smirk. “Where is he?”

Haylen tells her about the bunker. She tells her about its isolation, about the fact that they barely mapped it and so no one else likely knows it even exists. It does sound, from the way she describes it, to be a perfect location. 

“I’ll check there first,” she promises Haylen. 

Inside, she’s frantic, every part of her body racing to get to him before some worse fate befalls him. She’s anxious to get there before Maxson loses his patience and sends someone else; she’s bereft at the thought of facing the Commonwealth again without his strength to ground her.

Outside, she’s planning, filling her pack and buying ammunition and repairing her weapons. She’s keeping her face neutral and scheduling her vertibird back down the airport and mapping locations. She’s flying to the ground and walking off towards Boston, her gun drawn and her face calm even though inside she wants nothing more than to break into a run.   
Listening Post Bravo lies ahead. 


	12. Chapter 12

Alice is less than half a mile south of where she expects the bunker to be when there’s a rustle in the underbrush. Something is coming her way, and fast - she drops to a crouch, gun at the ready. Whatever it is doesn’t slow down, and when she takes off and hides behind a rocky outcropping, the creature coming towards her does the same. It’s coming, whatever it is, and it’s big -

And then something bursts through the clearing and she’s glad her brain processes what it is before she can shoot, because it’s Dogmeat. She’s so happy to see him she doesn’t even stop to wonder what he’s doing here - instead she’s hugging his neck and taking in the sweaty dog smell of him, like corn chips left outside in the rain. For his part, he prances happily around her, trying to lick her cheeks and mostly succeeding, no matter how much she tries to turn her face away. A solid two minutes later, she disentangles herself from the dog and he gives a happy bark, shaking his neck.

A bandana has been tied there, she sees now, and a piece of paper sticks out beneath it. When she pulls it out, it rips along the seam. Part of it is wet, but she can still read the careful printing.

_ Alice - _

_ We’ve found something big that might help. Follow the Freedom Trail. _

_ Piper _

Distractedly, Alice shoves the note in her pocket. Piper has something for her that sounds good, but first she needs to find the bunker. She needs to find him.

She cocks her gun and she and Dogmeat set off to the north, looking for the bunker. Looking for Danse.

 

* * *

He’s known someone would come looking for him; he’s not so foolish to think Maxson would let an abomination like him live. 

If what he’s doing can be called living.

Standing in the back room of the bunker, the room with the cave-in, M7-97 looks down at his body. His uniform lies in a discarded heap in the corner; a machine doesn’t need clothing. A machine doesn’t have modesty, or pride, or shame. 

He knows now what he is. 

All he wants is some time to make his peace with his true nature - he isn’t a human being after all. He is a machine, created by the Institute. He’s not even sure if he’s a replacement for a real person they kidnapped and murdered, in a bid to get inside information on the Brotherhood? If so, he certainly doesn’t deserve to live.

If so, they really fucked up, because he’d never betray his brothers, machine or not.

Or was he created for some other purpose, and escaped or discarded when he was no longer useful? 

Why does he have all these memories of  _ before _ , if he wasn’t meant to replace someone? Who would go through all that trouble?

Why didn’t he know his own true nature before he heard his synth designation?

His hands are scarred; his legs are strong. In his chest, something pumps what he thought was blood, but now he doesn’t know what is true and what’s been manufactured. 

The loud rattle of the elevator startles him, and he’s furious inside; he’s not ready. M7-97 isn’t sure if a machine can want anything, but he does. He wants just a little more time to understand.

He won’t stand up to the Brotherhood; if they’ve sent someone for him, he’ll deal with it.

When the doors open and he sees her familiar pale curls, something inside him breaks. It can’t be his heart; machines don’t have hearts that can break.

He stares at her, waiting for her to speak. Instead, she holsters her gun and takes a tentative step towards him. Panic rises inside him and he takes a step back. The look on her face is devastating.

“I’m not surprised Maxson sent you,” he sighs.  _ If only there was more time. _ “He never liked to do the dirty work himself.”

He can see her swallow. Her hands are shaking. “I wish you would have told me the truth, Danse.”

But that’s not his name; he’s not Danse. Danse may have been a man who was killed so that M7-97 could take his place. Danse was a member of the Brotherhood of Steel. Danse was a soldier. 

M7-97 is nothing. He should be relegated to the scrap heap.

The new knowledge of what he is, of how little he’s known about himself, makes him want to collapse. He’s never felt so tired.

“I might have, if I’d known what I was,” he tells her, wondering why he’s even bothering. “Until Quinlan got that list decoded, I thought synths were the enemy. I never expected to hear that I was one of them.”

“I know,” she says, her eyes are locked on his face, her expression unreadable. He looks away, ashamed. Whatever he thought this was, there’s no place for a synth in her life. She’s come to kill him, he knows that. 

“Do your duty. I won’t resist.” At least he’ll be able to rest. He won’t have to feel...this. This heaviness. Why create him just so he could go through this?

It’s another question he’ll never have the answer to.

“Is that what you think?” Her voice is barely above a whisper, and when he looks back to her face, her eyes are huge and furious. It looks like she’s barely keeping it together. “You think I came here to  _ kill _ you?”

“You can’t kill a machine.”

“I don’t look at you and see a machine,” there’s a pleading note to her voice. He wonders idly why she would want to save something that shouldn’t exist. “I look at you and I see...Danse. The same guy who dragged me through clouds of radiation in the Glowing Sea. The guy who helped me find my way to the Institute. The guy who kissed me in a bunker.”

“I’m not blind to the fact that this must be difficult for you. I wish Maxson had sent someone else.” There’s tears running down her face now. “Anyone else.”

“Don’t you...don’t you want to live?”

“What I want is...immaterial. I’m a synth. I should be destroyed.” He thinks of what she told him, of the Institute. He thinks of her son. “You know that better than anyone.”

She crumples at that; her whole face collapses. In all this time, despite what he’s seen her go through, he’s never really seen her cry like this. Like her heart is breaking.

And he’s done this, with his very nature. 

That’s when he sees the knife in her hand. In a moment, she’s sliced open a line in her palm, wincing as she does so. She holds the injured hand out to him, and he takes it, careful to avoid hurting her. A drop of blood drips from her hand to the floor, making a red smear. 

Alice grabs his hand, her fingers strong around his own, and before he realizes it, she’s made a shallow cut in his own palm. It hurts. There’s blood, or at least what passes for blood. M7-97 stares at it with a detached sense of curiosity. 

“Does it hurt?” She’s looking in his eyes, searching for something. He stares at his palm, closing and opening it. More blood drops from both their hands, splattering quietly on the floor. From up here, he can’t tell which is hers and which is his own.

“Yes, it hurts,” he admits. 

“How can you tell me that you’re not real if that hurts?” The knife falls from her uninjured hand, and she brings it to his face. Her fingers are cold, gentle - they touch his nose, his brow. They trace the line of his lips, and he feels a surge of longing. He wants to kiss her.

“If you don’t decommission me, you’ll betray the Brotherhood and all it stands for.” That’s the truth of the matter. That’s why he’s here, isn’t it? To wait for death. What a shame it has to be her.

She shakes her head, curls flying. “Goddammit, Danse, fuck the Brotherhood, fuck their ideals, and fuck you if you think I’m going to kill you. I won’t do it.” She still holds his injured hand in her own and she squeezes it now, sending a shooting pain up his arm. He winces. 

“Synths can’t be trusted. Machines were never meant to make their own decisions. I was never meant to make my own decisions.” He wonders about his life in the Brotherhood, following orders, taking direction. He was good at it - no wonder. He sets that aside. “Technology that’s run amok is what brought the world to its knees and humanity to the brink of extinction. I need to be the example, not the exception.” 

She’s sobbing now, her head leaning into his chest. He finds himself wrapping an arm around her back, rubbing small circles with one finger on her shoulder blade. Somehow comforting her comforts him; he feels more at peace knowing that someone who cares for him will do it.

Like he did to Cutler. Or at least, like someone named Danse did for Cutler. 

If you don’t do it,” he sighs. “I’ll have to.”

Her body goes stiff in his arms. She is still, all her muscles tensed, and all he can hear is the patter of blood dripping from their hands to the floor. 

And then so much happens at once. Alice is out of his arms, across the room, one shaky hand holding Kellogg’s pistol to her head. The gun is cocked, the barrel hidden in a sea of curls, and her hand is shaking so much he’s afraid she’ll pull the trigger by accident. 

Her voice is low when she says, “If you do it, I swear the next thing I’ll do is I’ll shoot myself.”

His hands immediately go up, palms out towards her. Defensive, placating. His voice is soft. All he can think about is talking her down. “You can’t do that. I’m a machine. Machines don’t really die.” But apparently they can feel pain? He doesn’t think he can think straight anymore, not with that gun at her temple.

“I’ve already lost everything, Danse,” her voice has raised. There’s a note of panic in it. “My husband is dead. My world is gone. My son is a fucking sociopath who murders people and replaces them with machines and I think he even created you. You are the only person I love in this world and if you kill yourself just to make things somehow even, I can’t live in it anymore.” 

He didn’t think machines could feel shock. But here he is, shocked. 

“You...love me?” It hits him like a ton of bricks. He can see her arm stabilizing; the look on his face must be clear. 

She loves him. And he loves her; he’s always loved her, from the moment he saw her at the Cambridge Police Station, shooting ferals even though there wasn’t anything in it for her. He thought he loved watching her work, but he realizes now, no - he loves her.

A synth shouldn’t be able to feel love. But he does.

“How could I have been so blind?” He’s speaking to himself more than to her, but she hears him; the gun drops from her hand and she runs into his arms. Her body is welcome against his; she fits right in the curve of his arms.    


She’s crying into his chest, shaking again like a small bird, and he buries his face into her hair. He doesn’t know who he is, but in this moment, he knows everything will be alright. Somehow.

 

* * *

Alice wraps their injured hands in gauze and opens some potato chips for a snack. Suddenly embarrassed at his display and shy about his body, he pulls his uniform back on They sit inside the bunker, curled up together on the floor, munching and chatting. Sometimes they’re quiet. After a while, she turns on her Pip-Boy radio and they listen to music together until she falls asleep, wrapped protectively in his arms. 

She’s wanted the chance to save him, she thinks to herself as she drifted off. And today she got it. Tomorrow will wait. For once, she has no dreams of the vault or her family or everything she’s lost. Sleep is quiet and peaceful. 

It’s hard to tell what time it is in an underground bunker, but she’s in the habit of waking around 6, and so when she rouses and checks her Pip-Boy, she’s surprised to see it’s well after 8. Danse is already awake, running his fingers through her hair and smiling at her in a quiet way. 

“Did you know you talk in your sleep?” He plays idly with a curl, twisting it back and forth between his thumb and forefinger. 

She shifts into a sitting position, suddenly shy. Her hand hurts where she cut it the day before, but somehow she likes it; the scar will be something tangible from this night everything changed. 

“Nate - my husband - used to tell me the same thing.”

Danse’s eyes narrow. Something lurks back there. “I forgot you were married once.”

Jealousy? Is that what this is? She feels a flicker of annoyance. “He was my husband, Danse. It’s not like I’m ever going to forget him. I’ll always love him. But…” she looks down at his chest, the memory of his naked body standing before her seared into her memory from the day before. Now, in his orange-and-gray uniform, she can still remember the power of his muscles. She flicks her eyes back up to his face. “He’s dead. He’s been dead a long time. And you’re here, and I meant what I said yesterday. I love you.”

His lips, when they meet hers, are tender. His beard scratches her chin; it tickles. His kiss is polite, tentative, and she moves her hand softly up to his neck, holding it face against hers, even as she opens her mouth. His tongue works its way between her lips, and his breath still smells faintly of potato chips. 

This is a man, no matter where he came from, she thinks as he wraps his other arm around her and crushes her to his chest. Her fingers wrap around the zipper pull at his throat and begin to work his uniform open, and he pulls back, hand wrapped around hers. 

“I’m not sure I’m ready for that.” His eyes are serious; he’s not teasing. Before she can ask, he continues, “Everything I had, everything I knew is gone. In the span of a few hours, my identity was ripped from me and my world turned upside-down. I’m not sure I’m ready for...what this means, too.”

Alice thinks about this and nods. 

“I understand. Just…” her fingers work their way out of his grasp and gently trace the line of his jaw. “Let me know when you  _ are _ ready.”

A smile from him. “I will. For now, you need to get out here.” 

She’s startled. “What, but why? I’m not leaving without you.”

He presses something metal into her hand. “Take my holotags. Use them to prove to Maxson that your mission was a success, or he’ll just send someone else to hunt me down.”

Somehow, this is the moment when it dawns on her that this isn’t over. Whatever happens next, where ever they go, Danse will be a fugitive from his own family. If she’s with him, so will she. 

Her thoughts drift back to the note in her pocket from Piper. Something big. Something that will help.  _ Follow the Freedom Trail _ . 

“I’m coming back for you,” she says, starting to stand. “If I come back and you’ve used this chance to go back on your word, know that I’ll kill myself too.”

But his smile is gentle, even kind. 

“You’ve taught me that I have value, even if I am an abomination,” his hand is warm in hers. “I’ll be here when you return. Waiting.”

There’s time for one more kiss before she leaves, and it’s sweet.

 

* * *

The ride back to the surface is loud; the elderly elevator clatters and rattles and Alice wonders if the cables will break and she’ll drop to the bottom to splatter into pulp. But eventually, she reaches the surface, and steps out into the sunshine outside.

And runs almost into Elder Maxson.

She stops dead in her tracks. The loathing in his eyes is a living beast all its own. Somehow, some way, he  _ knows _ .

“How dare you betray the Brotherhood?”

Her rage rises up before she knows what’s happening. “How dare you follow me?” Alice spits out. Her .44 is already in her hand. 

Maxson looks her up and down. “I suspected you’d have difficulty following orders. But I also knew if anyone could find that... _ machine _ , it’d be you. It appears I was correct on both counts.” 

He holds a gun as well. She’s not sure how she didn’t notice it before, but the laser pistol sits casually in his hand, held to one side. It’s long, silver. It looks lethal. 

“What did it say to you to make you betray the Brotherhood?”

“ _ He _ didn’t say anything. I love him,” she says simply. 

Maxson laughs. “That...thing isn’t a man. It’s a machine. An automaton created by the Institute.”

At the mention of the Institute, she feels a flare of shame. Maybe all this wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for her son. 

“He bleeds, he hurts, he loves. He’s real to me.”

“Flesh is flesh,” he gestures. “Machine is machine. The two were never meant to...intertwine.” The look of disgust on his face is pure. 

“How can you say that about him? He’s been your most loyal soldier. Think of all the things he’s done in the name of the Brotherhood. How can you doubt his loyalty?”

Maxson is silent, impotent in his rage.

“I couldn’t kill him. If you think you can, you’ll have to go through me.” She tosses the holotags into the dirt between them. “Here’s his tags. You can tell the others he’s dead, or you can fight me for him.”

He stares at her, perhaps trying to take her measure. Maybe just trying to think. 

Alice stares back at him, trying not to let her knees betray her sense of nervousness. She thinks she can take him down if she has to. But she doesn’t really want to prove it.

“Fine,” he says at last. He leans over, scoops up the holotags from the dirt. Glares at her. “He’s dead. Make sure he stays that way, or we’ll shoot on sight. Same goes for you.”

When she finally hears his vertibird take off over the hill, the sigh she lets out feels like it’s been held for years. It’s like she’s breathing for the first time since she left the vault. The air is fresh, cool. It smells of fallen leaves and freedom.   
She turns around and heads back into the bunker. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always felt that parts of Blind Betrayal were missing some oomph. So...here it is, I guess?


	13. Chapter 13

It’s really bracing to hear her deeds shared among a bunch of strangers. Danse knows Alice has been up to a lot since she woke up in Vault 111, but to hear the litany of it - clearing Fort Strong, eliminating Skinny Malone and his crew, taking out the courser, killing Kellogg - makes him feel a quiet, intense pride. She’s not the same soft pre-war woman he first encountered a scant week after finding herself in a new world.

She’s found  _ herself _ , and he’s pleased with himself for the small part he’s gotten to play in that.

“We need her, Des,” the man in the sunglasses is saying. The auburn-haired woman in the middle is clearly fighting to keep control over her face. The woman with the minigun has an impassive face and the thought flickers through his mind - is she like him?

“Very well, then,” Desdemona’s eye roll is visible even from across the room. “We’ll just let everyone in, shall we, Deacon?”

“Seriously, you  _ need _ to let her in,” glasses-man’s voice is strident. Forceful. “I’ve been watching her for a while, and you need her.  _ We _ need her.”

“I thought you looked familiar,” Alice interjects, and the man’s mouth opens in an “o” of surprise. Even Danse can’t tell if she’s serious or teasing, but he supposes it doesn’t matter.

“And...she’s been in the Institute,” the man called Deacon throws this out with little preamble, as if it were nothing more than an interesting tidbit. Everyone turns to stare at him, then in one motion, they all move to stare at Alice, who looks away as if embarrassed. Given her complicated relationship to the Institute, Danse can understand why.

Desdemona throws her hands up in defeat. “Fine, let her in. But if she turns out to be a spy, it’s on you.” She turns abruptly on her heel and leads the way into a crypt. 

The woman with the minigun gives Danse a nod as he passes her. He tries not to stare, but she’s clearly strong - she holds the gun without her shoulders sagging, and her armor is nothing to sneeze at, either. He feels naked without his power armor - how can she stand so strong without any? 

He wonders again - is she a synth? He wonders about that all the time these days.

 

* * *

Piper counts herself lucky to be at HQ when Alice arrives, Dogmeat in tow. She’s also got one of the Brotherhood guys with her, which is surprising, although neither of them wears a uniform. Even if she hadn’t seen him at the police station, Piper would have known him for what he was at a glance - he stands at attention and looks uncomfortably closely at everyone who passes, as if trying to suss out who’s a synth and who’s “real.” She knows that look well. 

Either way, it’s fascinating and it looks like they’ve got some catching up to do. 

But first there’s a hug to give; Piper wraps the vault dweller in her arms and is pleased to see the woman feels a little heavier than she did before. It’s  muscle, but at least she isn’t wasting away; she’s been getting strong. And to cap that off, despite the fading scar on her face, she looks happy. Given the way the Brotherhood lug is looking at her, all moony-eyed, it seems easy to figure out why.

They settle around a sarcophagus-turned-table, and Piper pulls a bottle out that she’d been saving for a special occasion. It seems like this is as good a time as any to pull it out. After a few minutes, she hears the door to the sewer shut and MacCready’s distinctive footfalls, and then he’s joined them at on her pallet, his leg hot against her own, a tentative smirk on his face. He and Alice nod to each other, and he gives the Brotherhood guy a smile.

Alice introduces her new friend and explains that the two of them have left the Brotherhood - that explains the missing uniforms. She pulls out a package of chocolates she scavenged somewhere, saying that if they’re going to have a party, they should make it a good one, and MacCready cheers to that. The four of them pass the bottle around and soon it’s smiles all around, and Dogmeat’s hot breath on her feet.

“So, why’d you leave the Brotherhood?” She can’t help herself; when Piper gets a couple drinks in her, she gets inquisitive. Danse - the big guy - and Alice meet each other’s eyes, and he nods slightly. She takes his hand in hers and for the first time, Piper sees they each have a hand wrapped in bandages.

“Danse found out he was a synth. Neither of us could stay after that.” It’s clear there’s more to the story, but Piper knows better than to push before people are ready to talk. 

To her left, she can see MacCready’s mouth drop open. Disgust, confusion, fear, curiosity all war on his face and finally he asks the question she’s dying to know the answer to: “Is he a... _ replacement _ ?”

Danse and Alice stare at each other for what feels like a long time, a spark seeming to travel between them; despite the time she’s spent with the Railroad, and the questions she’s been asking herself, Piper feels a rising anxiety in her chest, tight inside her ribcage.

“I really don’t know,” Danse says at last, breaking the electric look to face her instead. His eyes are serious. Piper believes him implicitly - the man doesn’t seem capable of deception. There’s something forthright about his brows, about the way he holds his lips. “So far as I know, I am...me. I always have been. I have memories of growing up - not particularly good ones, but I do have them.” 

And then the floodgates open, and Piper begins to get the full story: caught by his own DNA, from the data smuggled out of the Institute by Alice. Her assigned to execute him, despite their obvious closeness. How she couldn’t. And now, the two of them unofficially at war with the Brotherhood of Steel and seeking a safe place to rest and plan their next move. 

Alice takes a long pull from the bottle and passes it to Danse. He smiles - just a quirk of the lips, really - and takes a drink as well before passing it off to Piper. Alice wipes her mouth and turns to Piper with a loose grin. 

“So I hear from Mac that you’re working on a story.”

Piper shoots him a grimace and MacCready holds his hands up in a shrug. She sighs; it’s time.

“I am,” she admits, taking a drink of her own. The liquor is sour, and her lips pucker unconsciously. She passes it back to Mac, grimacing even as the pleasing warmth spreads through her body. Almost without her realizing it, MacCready takes one of her hands. His skin is rough but the touch is welcome. 

“Well, are you going to tell us what it’s about, or do we have to guess?” Alice teases, her hair falling over her shoulder in an appealing way. Piper can tell she’s drunk - suddenly she has an urge to kiss the woman across from her, an urge she’s never felt before. She should stop now before she does something she might regret. She focuses on MacCready’s hand on her own, on the question put before her.

“It’s about the Railroad, and the synths, and all this,” she gestures, acutely aware of how loud her voice seems. Is she yelling? She can’t be yelling. She shouldn’t be yelling. She shushes herself and realizes suddenly that the others are all staring at her. 

MacCready’s hand on her back is warm, comforting. It makes her feel more grounded, especially when he helps her get up. He’s saying something about how it’s time for bed, and she’s dizzy and walking is hard. Before too long, he’s found her a mattress in a quiet corner, and she’s not quite sure how it happened, but they’re lying there together.

His face is near hers; his breath isn’t much better than Dogmeat’s, but he holds her close, one hand rubbing circles against her back. She can feel her breathing slow, and the world stops spinning, and then she’s asleep before she knows what has happened.

 

* * *

“So your pal’s Brotherhood, eh?” It’s Bishop. No - that’s not right.  _ Deacon _ . He settles next to  Alice on her mattress, hands on his knees. Around them, the hive of the Railroad HQ has dulled some -  the bees aren’t buzzing so loud. Most are sleeping; to her right, Danse lies asleep on a narrow mattress of his own, his bulk taking up all the available space. 

The question shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it does. “How did you know?”

Deacon is hard to read behind his glasses and sarcasm. “I can’t give away all my secrets.” His grin is too self-satisfied. Her father would have called it “shit-eating.” 

She can’t tell if she likes this guy’s nerve or if she wants to smack him. She settles for raising an eyebrow and telling him: “I think you owe me one after stalking me across the Commonwealth.”

This earns a sigh from him and his smile fades a little. “You’re right about that. I’ve been watching you longer than you know.” She can feel herself flinch at the thought: someone following her, evaluating her. It makes her skin crawl. 

“It’s the way he carries himself,” Deacon gestures slightly at Danse. “He acts like a soldier, even out of uniform.”

Alice nods. “He’s a synth. We just found out.”

At this, Deacon actually looks surprised. She feels a surprising and intense satisfaction at the way he takes a long moment to digest this, which is immediately destroyed by his response.

“And you love him anyway.”

She looks at Danse. In sleep he looks younger, less worn. His breathing is slow - does he even need to breathe? Her understanding of this technology is so basic. 

“I do.” 

“It’s a dangerous thing, loving a synth.”

She turns back to Deacon, still annoyed at his sunglasses. They’re inside and it’s night. She knows why he’s wearing them - no one who speaks in so many riddles wants to be easily understood - but it still perturbs her. What if she reached up and just yanked them off in a desperate bid to see his expression?

“I can’t help it. He’s brave and kind and selfless.”

“All the things they programmed him to be.”

“So what?” Her face is hot. “He’s still who he  _ is _ , Deacon. No matter how he became that way.”

This earns her a smile from him, and suddenly the air feels ten degrees warmer. “You passed the test,” he says, and her cheeks begin to burn again.

“Test? What  _ test _ ?”

“Just my way of making sure you’re walking the walk. I heard about your connection to the Institute and needed to certain you were really on our side.”

Her heart crashes to a stop in her chest. For a moment, Alice completely stops breathing. “Heard about...my connection? What - um, what do you mean?”

_ Please don’t mean Shaun. Please _ .

“I mean your son. The Director. Shaun Delaney.”

 

* * *

It’s hard to tell what time it is, down here in this crypt. They’ll be heading out again in the morning, going up north somewhere to plant another of those things for Tinker Tom, and MacCready can’t sleep. He wishes he could, the trip would be easier if he was rested, but he can’t stop thinking about the way Piper felt in his arms.

He’s out in the sewer tunnel again, having a smoke, trying to rub some feeling back into his arm and pretending not to think about her. She’s so small under that coat, barely more than skin and bones; she reminds him of Duncan a little. He wants to protect her.

And that’s not all he wants. Lying on that mattress with the whole length of her pressed up against him had been too much. Even now, in the dark and foul-smelling sewer, his pants are growing tight. Just thinking of her is too provocative; he shifts position, trying to find a more comfortable posture, but then there’s the memory of the way she moved in her sleep, her hips grinding against him and he can feel himself getting hard.

Is he fourteen again? This is just embarrassing. He steps from one foot to another, taking a long drag of his cigarette and then dropping it into the questionable liquid at his feet. It lands with a plop and fizzles out, and then there’s a squeak as the door opens.

When he looks up, it’s her: her dark hair is messy and her eyes are sleepy, but it’s Piper, and somehow he’s embarrassed knowing what had been going through his mind just moments before. 

“Whatcha doin’ out here?” Her words are slurred, although the jury’s out on whether it’s sleepiness or liquor causing it at this point. She shuffles over to him, her steps small with her boots unlaced. Her arm snakes through his, and MacCready feels himself tense up. Her hair, where it touches his shoulder, smells faintly of soap, and the strands that touch his cheek tickle. 

He hasn’t felt like this since Lucy. 

“Just finishing up a smoke,” he tells her, wrapping his arm around her and marveling at the way she feels against him.

“Don’t take too long. You don’t want to be tired in the morning.” And then she kisses him.

It’s not much of a kiss - it’s on his cheek, and while her lips are as soft and warm as the rest of her, there’s something weirdly familiar about it. As if this isn’t the first time she’s done this. 

But before he can ask her about it, she’s gone, back inside the crypt, with the door swinging shut behind her, and he’s wondering how he can be expected to go back to sleep now.

In the dank, dark sewer tunnel, the flare of his lighter as he lights another smoke is bright. 

 

* * *

When Danse wakes, Alice is asleep on the mattress next to his. She’s curled away, facing the crumbling brick wall, and doesn’t look peaceful. Her eyebrows are narrowed and her muscles are tense. With her boots off, her feet look small, exposed. Before he can help himself, he reaches out one calloused hand to stroke her cheek - the skin there is soft, pale in the flickering light from the candles. 

He wonders what the rest of her might feel like.

It’s been years since he had a woman - if, indeed, he’s ever had one. It’s hard, trying to figure out what he’s actually done and experienced instead of what he was granted a memory of. There doesn’t seem to be any easy way to tell what’s real and what’s manufactured.

The last time he slept with a woman - or Danse slept with a woman - was a recruit at the Citadel. She had been pretty - tall, strong. She’d had long dark hair and deep olive skin. Their affair had been brief, but she had gotten pregnant anyway. When she lost the baby, she’d asked to be transferred out west.

Arthur had never let him forget about it. 

But how could he have gotten her pregnant, he wonders as he laces his boots. He still has so many questions about his...condition, but he’s fairly certain synths can’t make babies the old-fashioned way. So was this before he came into being, and a memory from the real Danse? Or was she sleeping with someone else as well?

Around him, others are beginning to stir. The dark-skinned woman with the minigun is pacing anxiously, and it occurs to him to ask her some of these questions. Maybe she’ll have an answer, or maybe she knows someone who does.

But before he can speak to her, the man in the sunglasses fills his vision. 

“Hey pal,” he says, offering Danse a bottle of water. He accepts warily. “Deacon. Nice to meet you. Sure is a big change from the Brotherhood, huh?”

Danse is startled, and grateful for his training. He betrays nothing, just asks, “How do you know that?”

Deacon’s tone is the kind one makes when rolling their eyes. “Oh man, not you too. I just went through all this with your girlfriend.”

Apparently Alice has been sharing things he’s not sure he’s ready to tell anyone. Danse feels a twinge of annoyance, deep in his gut. “I see. I assume she also told you...the truth about me.”

Deacon nods. The man is insufferably chipper. “That’s actually why I came to speak with you. Is it true that you only just found out?”

Behind him, Alice stirs in her sleep. Deacon puts a hand on Danse’s back and begins to steer him away from the mattresses. Danse glances back over his shoulder at her, but then Deacon begins speaking and he turns back to the other man.

“Yes,” he admits as they meander through the crypt, around piles of supplies and between sarcophagi. “We discovered it very recently.”

“And how are you dealing with it?” He’s unable to read the man’s expression behind those damn glasses, but his tone is surprisingly sincere.

“How do you think I am?” His voice is frustrated, irate. Bitter. “Everything I’ve always been is a lie. I don’t even know what in my life is real and what’s been put there. I don’t know how long I’ve been this way, or if a real person died so I could take his place.” Danse realizes he’s clenched both his hands into fists and tries to relax them. 

“Yeah, we get guys like you in here a lot,” Deacon says after a moment. “It can be really difficult to realize you’re not who you thought you were.”

Despite himself, Danse feels somehow comforted by the fact that this is just another day for Deacon. That other people - his people? - have gone through the same thing he’s going through now. As hard as it is, at least he’s not alone. 

“Are you a synth?” From Deacon’s expression, it’s clear that maybe this isn’t the right way to go about asking, but he doesn’t know any other way to ask. 

After a moment, Deacon finally answers him, in a way.

“Would you be interested in helping me with a project?”

“A project?”

“Yeah,” Deacon continues. “We’ve got a package we need to pick up and escort to the next location.  I think with your experience, you’d be a great partner to have, and it might give you an idea of what we’re all about here.”

Danse thinks for a moment. 

“When do we leave?”

Deacon scratches his chin. “How about now?”

Danse looks back at the mattress. Alice is gone - she must be searching for food, he thinks absently, or using the bathroom. 

“I should tell Alice where I’m going. We - we haven’t been apart since we found out what I really am.” It’s still too hard to say the word. A synth. He’s a synth. 

He can’t say it.

“Oh, well, that might be a little difficult,” Deacon looks coy and Danse can feel his skin begin to tingle. Something’s not right here.   
“You see…” Deacon clears his throat. “She’s gone back. To the Institute.”


	14. Chapter 14

“This unit has made a mistake.” Danse’s face - M7-97’s face - is impassive, blank. He’s naked, suspended over her from a metal circle; it’s the metal structure of his face she’s seeing, even as it’s his voice. “This unit is incapable of human feeling.”

The robotics division is cold. Not just sterile, but  _ cold _ , like an icebox. 

Like Vault 111.

Danse’s structure is dipped in a vat in front of her, and when it comes out again, it looks like him. Unscarred and younger, and handsome. He reminds her of Nate, before he went on his tour, when they were still sweethearts. 

“Unit designation M7-97 serves as a Brotherhood spy,” Danse’s voice echoes around her. Although his lips are moving, the sound doesn’t seem to come from him. “It has no feelings and thinks of Alice Delaney as an asset to be acquired.”

The door is sealed; she bangs on it until her hands are raw. Blood seeps down the door in drips and splatters from her injured fists. 

“This unit will serve the Director until decommissioned.”

And its hands wrap around her throat.

Alice sits up in bed, coughing and gasping. Looking around, it takes a while for her to realize where she is. Despite two previous visits to the Institute, the sterile white walls and plastic furnishings are unfamiliar, as is the face starting at her from across the room.

Her son’s face.

Shaun - somehow, improbably, a sixty year-old man she can only think of as Father - looks at her from across the room with one eyebrow raised. Something about her disturbed sleep has caught his attention and she wonders for a moment why he’s been in her quarters watching her. The blankets are tangled around her ankles and she wonders briefly how anyone ever has sex in the Institute with these tiny pod-style beds - don’t they keep you from doing what comes naturally?

“You slept poorly,” he has never called her Mother, Mom, Mommy, Mama. He seems to avoid calling her anything. It’s the only sign he’s given her that he finds this situation as bizarre as she does. 

He has had longer to adjust than she has.

Alice straightens the white jumpsuit he gave her, trying to make the scratchy fabric stretch the right way. None of the clothes Father gave her seem to fit quite right - it’s an ironic twist given how ill at-ease she feels in the entire place, with its glass walls and bright lights. She hadn’t realized how used to grime and the ground-in smells she’d gotten used to aboveground until this visit, when a plastic-faced synth showed her to her quarters. 

Everything down here is bland and clean. It makes her want to scream.

Of course, Father has made it clear that he loves it.

“I had a nightmare,” she says, finally, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and squaring her shoulders to look her elderly son in the eye. 

“What about?” His manner reminds her again of her father, the psychotherapist, and the way he would cock his head to get patients to divulge information they may have preferred to keep private. When she was a girl, she’d watch him through the window of his study, and it seemed every time he turned his head this way, the patient would start to cry.

“Your father,” she says flatly, looking Father in the eye. He looks worse since her last visit - his skin is jaundiced, pale and yellow. His eyes, still the same twinkling brown as his father’s, seem more sunken. Is his face narrower? It’s hard to tell if he’s lost weight under that jumpsuit and sweater, but he doesn’t look as hearty as he did on her last visit.

He doesn’t flinch. He never does, no matter how many of Kellogg’s crimes she flings at him. He clearly thinks the abduction, murder, and replacement of dozens or even hundreds of people doesn’t warrant a bit of guilt on his behalf. All she can think about is how she’s responsible for all of this - if it hadn’t been for that one afternoon with Nate, loose with one too many mixed drinks and romantic at sunset - so many things would be different now.

Not that she’s asked him directly; that would be too clear, and she’s only just made contact with Patriot. 

Father sighs. “I’d like for you to join us in a meeting shortly.”

“What about?”

Another sigh. “I’m dying. I would like you to continue my work as Director.”

 

* * *

The Switchboard is deep beneath a Slocum’s Joe. Deacon tells him that before the war, this was a place to get coffee and doughnuts. Danse wonders what a doughnut tasted like and makes a note to himself to ask Alice when she returns.

If she returns. 

The ruins are infested with early-generation synths, but Deacon is right - these things are stupid and easy to defeat. Danse can’t help but feel a little smug at how easily he and the Railroad guy slip between them, fire on them, and destroy them. 

And yet - 

Some part of him wonders if this is the same as killing a person. If he’s conscious, what’s to stop these...things from feeling the way he does? From having wants, or ideas? Why is he more deserving?

It’s a troubling thought. How much easier things would be if there was an easy way to tell what should live and what shouldn’t.

The exit is blocked by two more early models that clearly missed the racket they made taking out the others. These are relatively easy to take down, but the elevator ride up takes them to a couple turrets, more synths, and the minefield. 

The turrets are easy enough - Danse’s Brotherhood-issue laser pistol causes them both to explode even as Deacon sneaks behind one of the synths and - very carefully - plants a live grenade in its skeleton. 

“Do I hear somethi-” it turns, looking around for what made contact with it, and then explodes even as Danse ducks down behind the coffee counter. Shrapnel flies across the room - the remaining glass in a window breaks, and a coffee cup goes flying off the counter and drops next to Danse where it shatters. 

Then it’s quiet, and Danse raises his head to look over the counter. He ducks down in time to avoid getting hit in the face as Deacon slides over the counter, hollering, “Take cover!”

It’s only another moment before the first landmine goes off. There’s a five-second beeping countdown, and another synth demanding that they show themselves in that strange, metallic voice the early models all have, and then the first mine explodes. It’s followed by another boom, then a third, and then Danse loses count. Somewhere in the middle of the vast network of mines going off, there’s the distinctive louder rumble of a car’s nuclear engine going as well. 

“Usually I try to keep things a little quieter, but this time I thought it was worth making a little noise.” Deacon’s face is contorted into a wild smile under his sunglasses. 

That makes sense. It’s likely that more synths will come along later to investigate; with so much destruction, they’ll probably think any Railroad agents were killed in the blast and their remains incinerated. 

Still, it’s reckless. 

Danse pulls out his geiger counter. Back here the radiation isn’t too bad, but it’ll get higher when they get out towards the destruction. It occurs to him for the first time that he probably won’t need a dose of Rad-X. Synthetic humans shouldn’t get radiation sickness, right?

He pulls out the pills anyway and offers them to Deacon. The smiling man nods a thanks and pops two into his mouth, swallowing them dry. 

“We should probably wait a few more minutes before we head out,” Deacon says. Danse nods, distracted. “So how long were you in the Brotherhood?”

The Brotherhood. His family. For a moment, the remains of the Slocum’s Joe swims in front of him as he thinks of the fact that he will never see his family again.

Maxson has tried to have him killed. Haylen and Rhys are under orders to execute him on sight. Somehow he’s fallen in with the Railroad and is actively working against his old family and Alice - the only reason he’s still in this whole mess - is gone to the Institute and no one can tell him when she might return. 

If they even know.

Deacon is still staring at him - at least, Danse thinks he is, although it’s hard to tell with those sunglasses - so he shrugs. “Forever, I think. At least ten, maybe fifteen years.”

Deacon nods. “And they never caught on?”

“No,” he shakes his head. “Not until Dela - I mean, Alice - came back from the Institute with some information. Then everyone found out.”

“Well,” Deacon peeks around the corner and then turns back. “We’re probably clear to get out of here now.”

“What’s our next stop?” Danse follows Deacon out of the building, both of them crouched to keep their profiles low, weapons held at the ready. Outside, the street is bare except for the burning metal skeleton of a car. Everything else has been blasted to who knows where. Danse’s geiger counter beeps ominously as they approach and pass the vehicle.

“Told you we had a package to pick up, right?” Deacon ducks under a streetlight, shaken free by the blast and suspended at a dangerous angle. “Well this,” he pats the prototype in his bag, “wasn’t it. We just made this stop to get you in good with Des. The real mission is just up the road, at Drumlin. We’ve got to pick up an escapee and get them to Goodneighbor for a face swap.”

Danse thinks about this. It sounds difficult, dangerous, and he’s not too sure about Goodneighbor. 

Might as well get started then.

 

* * *

Getting around without much notice isn’t as easy as Desdemona and the others seemed to think it would be. Maybe they’d underestimated just how much she stood out, not being part of the insular community of the Institute, or maybe they hadn’t realized just how little Father actually trusts her. Whatever it is, Alice has been in this wretched too-bright hole for three - or is it four? - days now, getting to know the departments and department heads and attending various meetings and hasn’t been able to make contact yet.

Meetings. If there’s one thing about home she doesn’t miss, it’s them. Yesterday, she and Father and several others were in a series of meetings that went on for seven hours. How does anyone get anything done like this, she wonders.

There’s been talk of her joining a courser on a mission to bring back a rogue synth, and she managed to convince Father that she’s been used down here, getting to know the lay of the land, but only because she’s not sure she can keep pretending she wants to be a part of this if it means dragging someone who finally got out back.

They’re on a break now, between one endless boring meeting and another. She paces, looking out the window down to the atrium below, a cup of coffee in one hand. The one thing this place has going for it is this: coffee. There’s no cream and instead of sugar the synth serving it offered her some bizarre substitute, so instead she’s drinking it black, but it’s amazing, like a bit of home in a cup. 

And it keeps her from sleeping. When she sleeps, she dreams, and when she dreams all she can think about is where this is all going.

No mother should be forced to kill her child.

If only she could speak with Danse about all this. If only she could get a break - lack of sleep sounds good, but she wonders if she’s thinking clearly or if she’s cracking under the pressure. 

There’s a couple soft footsteps behind her, and she knows without turning that it’s him. Maybe she’s jittery from too much caffeine, but there’s something she needs to be sure to say to him. Something she needs to get out before things go too far.

“I wanted things to be different.” He takes a step closer, and now she can see him, just a little, reflected in the glass before her.

“It’s been a good life.” His voice, as always, is calm, almost sedated. She wonders if he would have been like this if the war never happened. If he would still do things...like this. Abduction. Murder. 

It doesn’t matter. She’ll never know.

“It’s time for our next meeting,” his hand is firm where it lands on her shoulder. Even through the thick fabric of her jumper, she can feel how cold his fingers are. They’re like ice, and she thinks again of the vault, of the cold that still sits in her bones, all these months later.

They head back into the conference room.

 

* * *

Making it to the top floor of the Boston Bugle building is easier than she thought it would be. Of all the M.I.L.A. trips Tinker Tom has sent them on, this is a cakewalk - relatively close to the church and with only a lone protectron inside the structure. The sun is setting though, and since they’d have to go past Faneuil Hall to get back to HQ, Piper and MacCready decide to camp out in the Bugle building for the night. 

She doesn’t want to admit it, but it feels a little like a pilgrimage. Piper leaves MacCready and Dogmeat in the lobby and explores the ruin, finding two functioning terminals that somehow still have old articles on them. Theres’s a lot of talk about the Boston Red Sox and baseball and it goes over her head, but she wonders if maybe Moe could explain more about it to her when she gets back to Diamond City.

It must be late when she finally pulls herself away and heads reluctantly back to the lobby. Things with Mac have been weird - he’s acted strangely formal in front of her for the last few days and she’s not sure why. He barely looks at her, barely speaks to her. 

Piper thought maybe - but maybe not. No, probably not, and she was foolish to let herself think it. 

When she walks back into the lobby, there’s a lantern lit and it looks like Mac has scavenged some blankets from somewhere. Dogmeat lies near the door, his back to them, his nose down even though he’s clearly not sleeping. A few cans of rations and some Fancy Lads Snack Cakes sit with a couple bottles next to the warm glow of the lantern. Mac looks up at her from cleaning his gun, then looks back down suddenly. 

Is it just the glow from the lantern? Or is he blushing?

No - that’s can’t be.

She sits, keeping almost a foot between them, and picks up the dark red bottle between two Nuka Colas. The label is worn but she can just make out an R and an M.

“Rum, huh?” MacCready looks up, meets her eyes. “Fancy.”

“Oh well, I thought maybe we could mix it with the Nuka Cola.” He sets his gun aside and suddenly her heart is hammering in her chest. “See what happens.”

What happens is that she drops the bottle; this close to the ground it makes a soft thunk that neither of them notice because she’s in his arms and he’s in hers and their lips are together and it feels amazing.

His body is lean and hard under his coat, and his hands tangle in her hair. He kisses a path from her lips down her throat, his hands tearing at her scarf; it disappears into the darkness beyond the lantern’s light. She leans her head back, looking at the cracked ceiling even as her fingers fumble at the buttons on his shirt.

Their jackets come off somewhere in the fray, brown and burgundy leather in a pile under her head when he lays her down on the blanket. Under the scratchy wool, she can feel the firm cold linoleum of the newsroom, but none of that matters because now his shirt is off and it feels like she’s really seeing him for the first time. 

His chest isn’t as tan as his face; there’s a constellation of freckles and some light brown hair in the middle, but it’s the compact muscle that awes Piper. He’s strong, no doubt - he may look scrawny under his jacket, but as his hands prove on their way to pulling off her pants, he’s certainly capable.

One of his hands slides inside her panties and Piper lets out an involuntary gasp. His mouth is still at her earlobe but then slides, inch by inch, down her neck to her collarbone, teasing her. She’s slick down below and before she knows it, one of his fingers has slid inside her. It taunts her by sliding back out again, and she grips the waistband of his pants and forces them down to his ankles where they catch at his boots. She thinks for a moment of asking him to take them off, then decides she doesn’t want to wait. 

He pulls his finger from inside her and leans back playfully. In the flickering of the lantern light, she can see the smirk on his face and it irritates her. Not now - not like this. 

Piper wraps one leg around MacCready’s waist, pulling him to her with a hand behind his neck - and then uses the momentum to flip so that she’s on top of him, looking down. From the expression on his face, this is more than welcome. His hands grope at her hips, sliding her panties down, and she takes his shaft in one hand, guiding him inside her. 

The look on his face mirrors her own - an unexpected thrill at finding him inside her. Slowly - agonizingly slowly - she slides down, wrapping him inside her. After a moment, she wriggles her hips, moves back up, and back down. She teases him like this another time, then a second and a third. And then his hands come down on her hips, forcing her back down even as his hand makes its way inside her unbuttoned blouse to fondle one of her breasts. His hands aren’t large and she barely fills his palm, and he uses his thumb and forefinger to squeeze one nipple.

She tilts her head back in pleasure; it feels like every nerve in her body is awake, alive. She moves against him, his hips grinding back against hers, and she can feel the climax building. It’s there before she knows it, with him pumping inside of her, and then she lies back against him.

It’s some time before she can think well enough to prop herself up on his chest and look him in the eye. His eyes meet hers, and then they’re both laughing. She looks at his face, at the smile lines around his sad eyes, and she knows then what she’s been avoiding.

“I think I love you too,” she tells him as he wraps his arms around her. Near the door, she can hear Dogmeat give a soft sigh and she wonders if he feels content too.

 

* * *

 

Alice has been gone for nearly two weeks when she finally returns to HQ. Danse has been back for a couple days - Deacon is back out in the field and asked him to go with, but Danse didn’t dare leave and miss her. To his credit, Deacon seemed to understand and left with Glory instead. 

“You can take care of the folks here,” Glory had said with a wink when they left.

He’s sitting on his pallet, treating himself to a snack cake when she walks in. Maybe it’s from being underground, but she looks different - paler, smaller. Her skin is whiter than he’s ever seen it, and the scar around her eye is more pronounced. Despite the fact that they presumably have real food down there, she seems to have lost weight, and when he wraps his arms around her, she seems shorter somehow. 

They stand like that for a long time; some of the agents give them curious glances but no one says anything. He’s fairly certain Deacon hasn’t told them who she really is; the man is pretty good at keeping things close to the vest. 

Finally she takes a step back and looks up at him, meeting his eyes. Although she still seems impossibly small, her face is calmer. 

“I need to make a trip before we go any farther with any of this,” she says. 

“Where to?”

“Home. There’s...something I need to do.”

He clears his throat. “Home?”

She takes his hands in her own and wraps one arm back around her waist. Danse resists the urge to crush her to him, to kiss her. Instead he keeps his eyes on her hers. 

“Sanctuary Hills.”

It sounds nice. It’s probably a ruin like everything else, but if she wants to go there, it’s not like he has any other plans. And whatever she needs to do must be important - it’s not like her to waste time.   
“We’ll leave at dawn,” he promises her. 


	15. Chapter 15

Sanctuary Hills is different from when she left; there are a few structures completely missing, but the ones that remain have been repaired somewhat, with boards across the worst holes in the walls, and doors on each house. A few shacks have even been built, and there are dozens of people walking around that weren’t there on her last visit. A garden has taken over the hill by the playground, carrots and grains and mutated tomatoes growing under the old play equipment. 

It takes her ages to find Preston - she has to ask several different settlers where he is before she finally locates him, keeping watch at the far end of the settlement, looking out over the hills beyond. He does a double-take when he sees her, then breaks into a smile that - just for a moment - makes her feel like everything will be okay. 

“If it isn’t our very own Vault Dweller!” He lowers his weapon and brings her in for a hug. Surprised, she hugs back, introduces Danse. Then there’s a half-hour tour as he shows her around, shows her the changes they’ve made and the water purifiers in the stream and Codsworth busily repairing another house not far from Preston’s lookout post.

“We’ve left your house, although Sturges fixed it up a little for you,” he says on their last stop. “We all kinda figured since you owned it before we were born and all, it wouldn’t be right to try to live in it.”

When she steps over the threshold, though, her eyes tear up. It’s such a sad approximation of what she once had - the ruined furniture has been removed or repaired, but everything still has that layer of grime and destruction that’s unavoidable after a war and two hundred years of being left in disrepair. But a bed has been constructed, and no one’s living in it, and Preston is urging them to stay as long as they want, so she blinks back her tears and says thank you and carefully avoids the nursery with its restored crib. 

She sits cautiously on the bed as Preston leaves. The mattress has been cleaned - it smells of Abraxo and no longer of mildew - but it sags with her weight and the stains on it are disturbing, to say the least. When the front door closes, Danse sits beside her, his thigh touching her own.

It never ceases to amaze her how much smaller he is out of his power armor. Not that he’s a small man - it’s hard to get a handle on just how broad his shoulders are inside his heavy coat, but there’s no reason to think of him as small. She appreciates that he waits for her to be ready to speak and doesn’t rush her. 

Her hands are sweaty. “So...I need to go back to the vault.”

His look is searching, heavy eyebrows raised and slightly furrowed. 

“I need to talk to Nate.”

His hand, when he puts it over her own, is warm and firm. It’s still hard to believe he’s a synth, with a grip so sympathetic. 

“Would you like me to go with you?”

She’s not even sure. It feels disrespectful to bring her new...boyfriend? Beau? Lover? To visit her husband’s body. 

But she’ll likely need his strength for what she has planned.

Alice nods mutely, unable to meet his eyes. 

“Then we’ll go whenever you’re ready.” She’s still nodding, somehow unable to stop. “Should I bring a shovel?”

She looks back up at him, and the tears she’s been holding back start their slow roll down her cheeks. Somehow he knew what she had planned.

Somehow he always knows, and that’s part of the problem. 

“It doesn’t mean you didn’t love him.”

Yes, somehow he always knows what’s in her mind. Even the things she can’t admit to herself.

“I know,” she looks back down at the floor, but Danse’s fingers are under her chin, forcing her face towards his. She flicks her eyes back to his and they lock.

“I know you loved him. I will do whatever you need from me. But I know that how you feel about me doesn’t mean you didn’t love him. And I’m sure he would know that too.”

 

* * *

He doesn’t rush her. She goes in by herself first while Danse begins to dig the grave, a square hole at the crest of the hill. He gets warm working despite the February chill and hangs his jacket over a bare branch on a naked tree. The ground is frozen and chipping away at it is difficult; the grave will need to be shallow given this limitation - but then he sees the excavator nearby. Two centuries of rust and probably the battery is run down and dangerous...but it’s worth a try.

The keys are easy to find, left in the ignition. A skeleton in a workshirt still sits in the cab, and Danse moves the bones aside, trying not to think much about how he’s preparing a grave for one person’s remains and yet lacks the decency to deal with this one’s respectfully.

As he thought, it doesn’t start on the first try. Strangely enough, though, the engine is trying to turn over. He climbs out and looks up at the cloudless sky. It might be worth trying again. Danse pops the hood and looks inside: everything appears to be in working order. He fills the cells of the battery with purified water from his pack and grabs a small bottle of oil to lubricate the gears. The work is easy but takes all his attention and he’s relieved to just stop thinking for a while. He adds some gasoline from a bottle he finds in the workshed.

When he climbs back in and turns the key again, nothing has changed. He tries a third time, stomping on the gas pedal and then - a miracle! It starts, running roughly for a few minutes before it evens out.

Danse wants to cheer. All that time spent working on his power armor did have a broader application. He can’t wait to tell Ingram - and then the smile slides off his face. He’ll never get to tell her how grateful he is for all her training and effort teaching him about the mechanics of vehicles, not now that he’s an exile.

Frustrated, he drives the excavator over to the gravesite and while it’s not easy to dig the hole, the work goes much faster than it would have by hand. 

When he’s finished, he drives it away, leaving the hole and pile of dirt as he goes down the elevator and into the vault.

 

* * *

It’s the same as when she left. Alice isn’t sure what she could have expected to be different - she was the only person to get out alive after all.

The only one aside from Shaun.

She stands in front of her husband’s body for a long time, trying to take it all in. She’s glad she had the foresight to close the pod before she left before - he’s still frozen solid, with no signs of decay. It’s hard to believe he’s been like this for sixty years. Aside from some ice crystals, he looks the same as he did the day they entered. 

But that’s the point, she supposes.

Her thoughts drift as she stands there, staring at him. Finally, she comes out and says it: “I’m so sorry, Nate.” Her voice sounds flat, hollow. She’s not even sure how much of it all she means.

“I never meant to forget you,” she tries again. His face is the same, frozen and impassive. Of course it is. “I found our son. He’s...not who we wanted him to be. He didn’t have the life we would have made for him. I don’t love him.”

The admission hurts. She wants more than anything to hear his voice again, to know he forgives her. 

“It should have been you,” her voice breaks. She takes his hand - it’s stiff and white with frost. It’s so cold it burns her skin. “I should have been the one to die here. You would have been - better at all this. You might have been able to convince him to stop what he’s doing.”

She falls silent again, listening to the blaring alarm overhead. 

_ All vault residents must evacuate immediately.  _

“I fell in love with someone,” she finally says. “I didn’t mean to, and I didn’t go looking for anyone. I wanted to remember you forever, like we promised.” Their wedding was in a yellow church, flowers on the altar. He was getting deployed unexpectedly and wanted her taken care of if he died, so it all happened suddenly. She’d worn her best navy suit with a white corsage; Nate had worn his uniform. She wishes now she had a picture of the moment, but they were probably all destroyed in the war. 

Alice coughs, clears her throat. “I fell in love with him and I think you would have liked him. I’m sorry you’re gone, but I’m not sorry I love him. He’s a good man and I’m...lucky to have found him.”

There’s a sound down the hall and she jumps, but it’s just Danse lurking in the doorway, trying to be invisible and failing. A smile darts across her face, and she waves him in. 

 

* * *

Danse pauses at the doorway, trying not to intrude. He can hear her speaking. The acoustics of the vault are interesting; even though she’s whispering, he can somehow hear her voice as if she’s standing right next to him. 

“I fell in love with him and I think you would have liked him. I’m sorry you’re gone, but I’m not sorry I love him.” He doesn’t want to smile, but he can’t help himself. His heart beats like bird wings inside his chest, fluttering and strong. Or whatever he has for a heart, at any rate. “He’s a good man and I’m...lucky to have found him.”

He wants to give her more time; he wants to run in there and grab her up in his arms and kiss her. He wants so many different things, and they all contradict each other, so he settles for standing in the doorway. Somehow, though, she knows he’s there and turns to face him. She’s not mad, though - a smile crosses her face and she waves him in, and though his knees are jelly, he manages to make it over to her. 

“This is my Nate,” she says, gesturing to the body in the pod. The man’s face reminds him a bit of his own - strong features, a scar, dark hair. Nate’s skin is more tan despite the thin scrim of frost over him. A droplet of water hangs from one eyelash where he’s begun to defrost, and Danse thinks they need to get him in the ground soon before he completely thaws. 

Danse nods. Alice turns, eyes shimmery with tears. “Can you help me get him above ground?”

The body is stiff and difficult to move; freezing is a good way to preserve a corpse, but it makes it hard to get that corpse into a different position. It takes both of them to move to body to the elevator. Danse grabs Nate’s shoulders and Alice takes his feet. On the elevator ride back up, he blows on her frozen fingers, trying to get some heat back into them.

When the elevator reaches the surface, they’re treated to the setting sun; they were down there longer than he thought. Once again, Danse picks up Nate’s shoulders, his fingers wrapped in the thawing fabric of his vault suit, and Alice takes his feet. They struggle across the uneven ground to the grave, overlooking the valley and Sanctuary Hills below. At the head of a grave is the corpse of a huge tree, bare branches thrust to the empty winter sky. 

Taking his lead from her, Alice helps lower the body slowly into the grave, and they begin piling dirt on top, taking turns with the shovel. When the mound is complete, they scavenge about for a suitable rock, and find one partway down the hill to the west. Together in the glowing gloom, they roll it back up the hill to the grave and set it on top to mark the grave and discourage scavengers. Before they head back down, he sees her fumbling at her fingers, and then there’s a flash of gold in the last glimpses of daylight. 

Her ring. Her  _ wedding _ ring. 

Alice brings it to her lips, then places it gently on top of the rock. She stands there for a moment, one hand on the rock, and stares down into the trees as if she’ll never move. Then, suddenly, she turns on her heel and marches down the path. Danse scrambles to keep up.

 

* * *

As tired as MacCready is of Goodneighbor, the street outside the Memory Den is always beautiful at night. The glow of the neon from the signs splashes the cobblestones like an old painting, and this evening there’s a mist leftover from an earlier rain. 

He waits on a bench outside the Third Rail, Dogmeat at his feet, for Piper to return with a bottle. It’s relatively mild tonight, and while they’ll head in the Rexford later for a room, he kind of just wants to sit outside and enjoy the beautiful sky above him. The stars are so bright, and the moon practically glows where it peeks out over one of the ruined buildings the forms Goodneighbor’s boundaries. 

After they left Med-Tek, he and Alice had camped out one night in old Malden. Lying there, under the stars, she’d mentioned that before the war, there had been so many lights all the time she almost never saw the stars. She’d been amazed at how many there were, and all MacCready could think was that he’d finally found one thing that was definitely better now. 

The door swings open and Dogmeat’s ears perk up. Mac turns his head to watch Piper walk out - he loves watching her walk - but it’s not her coming to see him. It’s a man - a big man - in camo green, a knife in one hand. 

His brain isn’t working as fast as it should; he should be going for his gun, or getting up, or doing anything but sit there waiting, but somehow he doesn’t move. All his brain can process is that Barnes is dead, he saw him die, and so it can’t be him coming at him now.

The knife slides in between two of his ribs before he can register what’s happening. It doesn’t seem to hurt, but somehow Mac can’t breathe anymore. He slips off the bench into a pile on the ground even as Barnes steps around him, and then one boot connects with his face. 

This does hurt; his head flies back into the iron leg of the bench, and something wet and metallic drips from his nose. He raises his arms over his face defensively, but this time Barnes kicks him in the stomach, and he doubles over.

“You should have left the Commonwealth,” Barnes growls. There’s a hand on his chest now, and another twisting the knife between his ribs, and there are stars behind his eyes. He tries to shove Barnes, to wrap his hands in the bigger man’s harness and yank at him, but he can’t see and he can barely move, and then there’s barking and a gunshot and shouting, and the last thing Mac thinks before he sinks into unconsciousness is that he hopes Piper is okay.

 

* * *

When Alice wakes, it’s still night. She can see the blackness through the bit of unbroken window, glowing darkly against the brightness of the moon. A shaft of moonlight streams across her bed. She’s not sure why she woke, and then she realizes it’s because someone is in the room with her. She turns, looks at the door, and Danse stands in the door frame.

And he looks amazing: his hair is tousled from sleep, and the corners of his eyes are smiling at her even as he asks, “Are you alright? You were shouting.”

“I was?” She tries to sit up, looking around the room that was hers before the war. Hers and Nate’s. 

On the bedside table there’s a lantern; she fumbles with matches and finally gets it lit. The flickering light highlights the shape of Danse’s muscles, the thicket of dark hair on his chest. She really must have been shouting to wake him from the living room but looking at him, she feels something deep inside her twanging, like a guitar string.

He moves over, sits on the edge of the bed next to her. The bed sags with his added weight. His face, when he looks at her, is serious.

“Yes. Something about the park?”

She can feel her cheeks grow hot. The park. She and Nate never seemed to be able to go there without...well, it’s a good thing that park wasn’t usually very busy, at any rate. 

“Don’t worry about it. It was just a dream.” She leans in and pecks him on the cheek. His skin is ruddy under her lips. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

His eyes are gentle, locked on her own. He places a calloused hand gently on her cheek and leans in, softly pressing his lips against hers. The twanging deep in her core begins again. She arches her back, curving against him so that she’s against his chest. His kiss is tentative, as if he’s afraid. Afraid of her? Afraid of hurting her? She can’t tell and it doesn’t matter; Alice parts her lips and her tongue tests his defenses, slipping between his lips deftly to taste him. 

She’s hungry tonight, and she wants him. 

His hand moves from her cheek down to her shoulder, squeezing gently through the fabric of her shirt. She moves one hand up to the back of his neck, guiding his face to one side as she works her way to the soft skin of his neck, just below his earlobe. He gasps; she must have found a sweet spot. His hand works its way down to cup one breast. His thumb flicks her nipple through the flimsy fabric, and she spares a thought to how grateful she is that he’s becoming more comfortable with her. 

She lays her other hand on his chest. His heartbeat hammers away, a steady thud under her palm. Her fingers tangle in the dark hair, and she becomes aware of the delicious masculine smell of him. He pulls back from her, meeting her eyes.

“Are you sure you want this?” His voice is steady. She nods. 

“Are you sure? Today?” She nods again.

“Are you sure you want...me?” He gestures with one hand at himself, and she knows he means  _ do you want this synth? _

But she does. 

Alice leans in and kisses him again, her lips hot on his own. She takes the hand he dropped and returns it to her breast, and he responds, pulling her onto his lap as his hands go to the hem of her shirt, pulling it up over her head.

His skin feels amazing against her own. She can’t remember the last time she felt this good. Against her belly, she can feel his cock growing hard inside his pants, pressing against her even as his lips pepper her throat with kisses. She sweeps her hair to one side and wraps her arms around him, one hand working its way through his thick, glossy hair. His lips make their way down her chest to rest lightly on one nipple; his big hand tracing a line around her breast even as his tongue teases her.

Alice leans back, trusting Danse not to let her fall, and he doesn’t; his arm around her is strong, firm. She grabs the edge of his pants and forces them down. He stands partway to help her, and before long they’re both naked. He’s larger than she expected - bigger than Nate, and for a moment she wonders how it’s all going to fit. He spits into his hand, rubs it on the shaft, and then slides her down on top of him. 

She takes her time, hesitant, but she’s wetter than she realized. They sit for a moment, feeling each other, looking at each other, Alice facing him on his lap, her knees bent. And then - he moves her, up and down, and she can feel the muscles in her muscles tightening around him. His lips flit up her throat back to hers, and they’re kissing and it’s not gentle this time.

Her arms and hands grope at his shoulders, slick with sweat, and there’s a gasping sound coming from her and a low rumble from him. The waves are building inside her with each pump, and she can tell from the look on his face that it’s happening for him too. One of his hands cups her breast roughly, taunting her nipple.

When she crests the final wave, there’s a bursting inside her. He leans his head on her shoulder, panting, and her body relaxes into his. They sit like that together for a long time, and after a while, she’s not sure where her body ends and his begins; all she knows is that she hasn’t felt this safe in a long time. 

“I’ve wanted this for so long,” he kisses her, and she slides off him to sit next to him on the bed. He lies back, and she curls up against him like a comma, her head on his chest and his arm around her shoulders. Her fingers play in the hair on his chest, curling the strands around and making them stand.   
She looks back up at him; his eyes are sleepy again, and warm. “Me too.”


	16. Chapter 16

Alice spends the next several days at Sanctuary, helping the settlers in the garden and keeping watch from the guard outposts. Danse swaps out with her, and in the evenings, they share a can of something or - more often now - a bowl of stew made from vegetables and hunted meat. Some days she pays a visit to Nate’s grave, but these visits grow more infrequent as the time passes. At night, she and Danse all into bed together; no matter how many of these nights there are, her appetite for him just grows. She still wears Nate’s ring on a chain around her neck, but it feels different - less a millstone and more a pretty pendant that was given to her by someone important.

More settlers arrive, and she’s tasked by Preston with starting a settlement at the Red Rocket just up the road. She and Danse spend an enjoyable afternoon killing mole rats, then begin salvaging the materials that are still usable and scrapping what isn’t. Before too long, they’ve planted a garden and built shelters and beds. Danse and Preston spend a couple days teaching her how to construct a generator and another afternoon giving her the ins and outs of putting together a radio beacon. A couple days after that, settlers start to arrive - just one or two at first, then a flood.

Days turn into weeks, and suddenly they’ve spent a month at Sanctuary and the Red Rocket. When Preston asks her if she’ll visit Tenpines Bluff, just to the east of Sanctuary Hills, it doesn’t seem like an imposition - on the contrary, she finds herself eager to help, to lend a hand when Preston has done so much for her.

And where she goes, goes Danse.

The mornings are still cool, but by early afternoon, the sun has warmed the hills and valleys so that she can’t stand wearing a jacket. The walk to Tenpines Bluff is pleasant in the spring air, though it makes her momentarily sad to see so few plants blooming. It seems like just last year, plants were bursting all over by this time of the spring - but then again, to her it was just last year. 

It’s clear that Danse is feeling it, too - he circles around her in a way that reminds her of the puppy she had as a girl, the way he would frolic every year when the crocuses started popping up. Though Danse is less chipper than the beagle, it’s clear from his manner that he’s feeling friskier than he did just a few weeks before. 

There’s no greater indication of that, in fact, than the moment he grabs her by the waist to fling her up against the trunk of a tree, bringing her face to his height. She flails awkwardly, her weapon still in her hand, then steadies herself with two legs wrapped around his waist. His lips on hers are warm and teasing, as playful and passionate as the rest of him. His fingers trace the curves of her body over her clothes before his hand moves rub her gently through her pants. She wraps her fingers in his hair, savoring the way his mouth moves down her throat to kiss her neck. All it takes is a little tug for him to continue lower, and he helps her to the ground and pulls off her pants.

She lies on the ground, her eyes following the clouds as Danse works his mouth over her, letting out a gasp and a moan as he finds the right spot. Around her, the sky is framed by jutting rocks and tall yellow grasses that never seem to grow or wilt. But then he’s using his hand as well and the time for rational thought has ended.

 

* * *

Piper doesn’t dare leave town. She wants to, desperately, to head back to the Railroad HQ, let them know that she’s fine and ask for help. But she knows if she leaves, he’ll die. It’d be just like that rat to jump ship the second she books out, so instead she spends half her time at the Third Rail, drinking and staring sloppily at Magnolia, and the other half sitting by MacCready’s bedside, holding his hand and sobbing. 

At least she’s saving caps this way, sleeping next to MacCready on his narrow sick bed in the basement of the Memory Den as opposed to blowing it all on a real bed at the Rexford. Dr. Amari’s been nice enough to let her crash there even though the longer it goes on, the less likely it is that he’ll wake up. 

Sooner or later, the doctor says, Piper will have to make The Decision.

She refuses to believe it, even when she goes back to the Rexford one night with Magnolia. They’re kissing and Magnolia’s naked and it all feels so good and then suddenly Piper is crying into Magnolia’s mouth. 

The older woman sits back, unfazed. Nothing ever seems to bother her. Nude but for her glossy black heels, she steps away, facing the boarded-up window, and lights a cigarette. The smoke trails through the room, white and unfocused. Magnolia watches her carefully from under her dark lashes, and Piper takes a swig from MacCready’s flask. It’s the only thing of his she could bare to take.

He’s going to need the rest of it back.

“Keep drinking like that and it might kill you,” Magnolia observed, sitting in the chair opposite the door, never breaking eye contact with Piper.

Piper glares at her balefully. What does she know?

The only man - the only person - Piper could see herself committing to is gone, murdered by someone she didn’t even see. It’s been weeks since he spoke, since she saw his eyes.

She almost can’t remember what color they were. Are. Were?

Are. As long as he’s still breathing, it’s are.

“What does it matter?” Even to herself, her voice is unrecognizable, slurring its way around consonants and vowels and dropping the letter “R” like it’s out of style. 

A sigh from Magnolia, who takes another puff. “You know it matters.”

Piper props her head up on her hand and takes another meditative sip from the flask. Now that she’s drinking all the time, she’s found that the taste of vodka isn’t so bad. Something about the clear liquid reminds her of water. Whiskey, though, is still beyond her.

“He’s not going to wake up, Mags. He’s going to die and I should have been there.” The flask slips through her fingers to drop on the floor. Liquid seeps out onto the hardwood, but she barely notices, except to think absently that she’ll have to find a way to refill it. There’s a shuffle as Magnolia puts her dress back on, a skittering of beads sliding together, and then a warm arm wraps around Piper’s shoulders.

“Whether he wakes up or not, it won’t matter if you’ve drunk yourself into the ground,” her tone is sweet even if the words aren’t. “You need to get your shit together. Go back to Diamond City.”

“There’s nothing there for me.”

“What about Nat?”

Gosh, she hadn’t thought of that. What about Nat? It’s been weeks - months maybe - since she checked in. Even with Pastor Clements looking out for her and the pile of caps Piper left, it’s still no good to leave an eleven year-old alone for so long. She’s been a shit big sister, and she knows it.

“You’re right,” she mumbles into Magnolia’s shoulder. “You’re right.”

 

* * *

The settlers at Tenpines are happy to support the Minutemen if they get some help with a raider gang that won’t leave them alone. Danse surveys the crop of tatos, the barren hills around the shack, and wonders to himself what in the world the raiders are thinking, hassling these folks. How terrible do things have to be for them to harass  _ these _ people?

It’s weird to think that just a couple months ago, he was part of the Brotherhood and now he’s already found a new mission, a new purpose. Two, in fact, if Alice ever rejoins the Railroad, although he wonders about it. These days, she seems focused on rebuilding, or on forgetting.

They travel to the Corvega plant. Inside are raiders, outside are raiders; the whole place is crawling with them, like a radroach infestation if the roaches shot at you. It takes hours to clear the entire structure, and afterwards, he feels a tinge of sadness. Danse looks at the bodies on the roof, blood seeping from the exit wounds in their chests and legs and arms. 

“Why would someone do this?” He asks her. She stares at the head of a raider that lies at her feet. Half his head disappeared in a shower of blood and bone, and what’s left of his face wears a shocked expression, mouth open in pain. Her boots are splattered in gore. “Why would someone join a gang like this?”

She looks up from the ground, and her movement draws his eye. They stare at each other.

“For survival, I guess,” she slips her gun into its holster and kneels, searching through the raider’s pack for ammunition. 

“But raiders?”

“Some people might say the same thing about the Brotherhood.” She doesn’t look at him as she says this. “Or the Institute. Even the Railroad, or Minutemen.” Alice stands, looking back at him, slipping bullets into a jacket pocket. “They’re all just different gangs, scrambling to the top of the mountain.”

Behind her, the sun is starting to set. They’ll have to overnight here, or at least somewhere in Lexington. It’s too late to head back to Tenpines today, not in the dark. There’s too many perils out there.

The thought of sleeping downstairs, in the factory with all the bodies and the machinery that’s somehow still running, turns Danse’s stomach. 

“But,” he tries again and stops. “At least the Brotherhood has a mission. The Railroad has a purpose. The Minutemen are trying to serve the greater good. These assholes,” he taps the corpse on the ground with his toe, “are only out for themselves.”

Usually he can read her expression just by looking in her eyes, but this time she’s inscrutable. 

“Perhaps you’re right,” is all she says, looping an arm through his and guiding him back to the roof door. “Come on big guy, I’ve got an idea of how to take your mind off all these questions.”

There’s a smile on her face as they head inside to find a place to bunk down for the night.

 

* * *

“I hope you don’t mind my borrowing this,” Piper holds MacCready’s hat in one hand. Hers she sets at his bedside, on a small table. Dogmeat watches her with interest from his place on the sickbed. He’s been there since Mac was brought in, leaving only to do his business and scavenge some food around town. Piper’s surprised at how well the dog has recovered from his own incident that night - it had been hours before anyone wondered what happened to him, and when Piper found him, he was near death. The bullet had been lodged near a major organ, and Dr. Amari said they’d be best off shooting him in the head, but the thought of killing that dog was too much for her. 

“I’m not a veterinarian,” Dr. Amari had said wryly, one eyebrow arching as she stared at Piper. She’d said MacCready was stable but had no idea when he would wake up or even if he would. The last thing Piper could handle was watching Dogmeat die too. She’d been too tired and scared to do anything but cry, but that seemed to be exactly the right thing - Amari had sighed and put on a pair of gloves and collected some sterile tools.

Piper scratches Dogmeat behind the ears, smiling through her tears as the dog lazily wags his tail against MacCready’s lifeless arm. She’d spent the night in Magnolia’s room alone - the singer had left after her crying jag, heading back down the Third Rail, doubtlessly picking up a new stranger. Piper had dozed somehow in the chair by the window and woken up early with a headache that didn’t abate, no matter how much water she drank.

Her hand stops scratching and moves away from Dogmeat to pick up MacCready’s hand. This is the first time she’s ever seen his hands completely clean. She’s kept his nails trimmed, and she turns his hand over in hers now, looking at the way his skin is already lightening after so many weeks out of the sun. 

If only he’d come back to her.

“I’ve got to go back to Diamond City for a while,” she swallows back some tears, trying to fight the reality. She may not be back. “I need to see my sister. I haven’t - I haven’t exactly been _ there  _ for her the way I should be. But I’ll be back.”

A lie. Maybe. Probably. Who knows? She could get gunned down five feet outside Goodneighbor’s door. 

But she  _ wants _ to be back. 

“I’ll be back, and things’ll be okay. You’ll see.”

She gives his hand a final squeeze, watching his face for any recognition, any sign that he can hear her, but there is none. He looks as if he’s sleeping, his face completely still except for the calm, shallow breaths that make his nostrils flare slightly.

Her hand slips out of his, resting his on the bed against his thigh. Dogmeat eyes her watchfully, and she reaches in her pack to give the dog a morsel of squirrel. 

At the door, she pauses, looking back at him, his hat in her hand. 

“I love you,” she tells him, slipping the cap on her head, and then she’s out the door, up the stairs, and gone.

 

* * *

After the success at Tenpines, Preston sends them to Oberland Station. Sunshine Tidings. The old drive-in theater behind the Drumlin diner. Spring slides into summer, and more evenings are spent around cookfires with new friends, roasting game and sharing a bottle of booze, and it occurs to Alice one day that she hasn’t thought of the Institute or of synths in weeks. 

Her body has grown strong; the weight she lost and the weakness she felt during her visits below ground is gone. She’s capable now; when she meets someone on the road, she often knows them, or a cousin or friend of theirs. Just the other day, as they left Hangman’s Alley, a young girl had pressed a piece of fabric into her hand. 

“Thanks, Erin,” she’d said, but she’d been a good ways down the road before she opened it. When unfolded, there was a picture embroidered on an old handkerchief, of a woman with yellow hair and a tall man with a big gun, shooting a super mutant. It was primitive and simple, but still somehow brought a tear to her eye.

She’s helping. Somehow, despite everything, she’s carving out a life here.

This evening she and Danse and Preston sit on the beach at Nordhagen, bottles of beer in their hands and bellies full of mirelurk cakes roasted for them by Anna-Mae, the woman who runs the settlement. There’s a fire in the sand, and one of the settlers has a guitar and is playing an old song. Anna-Mae is doing a fairly passable Big Maybelle impression, her voice powerful and her moves in the growing gloom sultry. 

She’s wrapped in Danse’s arms, the warmth of him against her back comforting as the temperature drops. There’s the pacifying lull of the waves, and Preston is smiling in a way she hasn’t seen before. It’s possible he’s a bit drunk - or maybe it’s just the admiring look he’s getting from one of the young men across the fire. 

“So, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about,” Preston says, turning back to her, even as the young man glances back at him. His eyes are serious, genuine.

“What is it?” Whatever it is, it’s probably work. Given how good she feels taking care of things for him, she welcomes it. 

“I’m the last... _ active _ Minuteman. Even now, with all that we’ve been doing getting the settlements up and running, I’m all there is of the old structure.” She nods, wondering where this is going. “I’m getting requests all the time from people who want to join up and I have to tell you - I don’t belong in leadership. I mean, you saw how things were in Concord.”

Preston goes quiet, his face serious as he stares into the fire. She thinks back to that day - the first day - and he’s right: things were grim for them.

“I know how it feels...to be the last survivor.” Danse rubs her back softly, his hands making lazy circles. There’s something in the way his hands finger the side of her breast - just skirting the line of what’s appropriate in public - that makes her think he’s drunk. She tries to focus on Preston; after everything he’s done, giving her a purpose and a home, she owes him.

“That’s why I’m talking to you.” His voice is quiet; around them, the din of people celebrating is cheery, warming, but Preston’s face is thoughtful. His words are deliberate. “I can’t rebuild the Minutemen. But you can. You already have been.” He stops, takes a long drink of his beer, and takes his eyes off the fire to meet hers.

She laughs, uncomfortable. “I don’t know what makes you think that.”

But she does. Somehow, it seems like everything has led her to this point.

“You saved us in Concord, when there wasn’t anything in it for you. You had your own problems to deal with, but you did it anyway.” His eyes glitter in the firelight. She finds herself unconsciously leaning forward to catch his words in the business around them. “You came back and have cleared out good locations for settlements, dealt with raiders and ghouls, and supermutants, and you never even ask for caps -”

“You always pay me,” she interjects. She’s no saint. She knows that.

“That’s not the point. You don’t ask for payment. You just ask what needs doing, and then do it.” He pauses, glances back up at the man across the fire, working his way closer to them through the party. His mouth flirts with a smile and, when he meets her eyes again, has committed to it. “I think you’ve got it in you to bring the Commonwealth together. General.”

General? For a moment her heart stops. That’s the top rank, isn’t it?

Behind her, Danse has gone still. His hand, the one testing the bounds of decency, has stopped between her shoulderblades, and she can feel his tension even without seeing him.

She looks down at her feet, naked and half-buried in the sand. 

When she looks up again, the man who’d been eyeing Preston from across the party is seated next to him, two beers in his hands. 

“Can I think about it?”

Preston sighs. “Of course. But I think you and I both know this is the right choice for you. We can talk more tomorrow.”

  
He and the young man with the jelly roll disappear down the beach, and she leans back against Danse’s chest again, looking out past the fire at the blackness of the ocean. 


	17. Chapter 17

It’s late June when Piper has to finally face facts and pay a visit to Dr. Sun. Even though she hasn’t touched a drop of liquor since leaving Goodneighbor, she’s still sick at all hours of the day, and Dr. Sun confirms it: before the end of the year, she’s going to be a mother.

She’d thought the gradual tightness of her clothes had more to do with staying around the city with Nat, eating snack cakes and drinking Nuka Colas and not...running all over the Commonwealth. She’d chalked the fights between her and Nat to having the same personality. She’d thought -

No, screw it. She’d known before she left Goodneighbor. She’d known but hadn’t believed.

How the hell is she going to raise a baby? Piper’s not ready for the responsibility that comes with parenting. She can barely remember to feed Nat, and that girl’s got a mouth on her - she won’t go hungry quietly. And then there’s her work - how will she feed the three of them if she can’t work because she’s spending all her time taking care of the baby? It’s not like she has enough caps saved up to stop working for a few years. 

For the first time in a decade, Piper feels an active ache in her chest when she thinks of her own mother. 

And then there’s MacCready. Is he dead? Alive? In her condition, she’s too scared to make the trip to Goodneighbor to find out, and even though she stopped by the radio station and asked Travis to make a few announcements asking about his condition, no messages have come back by radio or with any of the traders. 

So she writes stories, some of them fictional, and spends her days at Power Noodles, scarfing down carbs and trying not to think about the fact that in just a few weeks, everyone in town is going to know about her condition without her telling them. Summer in the Commonwealth is sweltering, and her belly is growing so fast it’ll announce it to people before she does. For the first time, Piper has a flickering sympathy for McDonough - synth or not, he must have felt the same way every time she’s written a story about him.

It’s one of these sunny afternoons that sees her in front of Takahashi again, sipping the broth from her bowl and glumly contemplating her options, when she feels a familiar warmth settle onto the stool next to her. When she looks up, there’s Alice. Behind her, chatting with Arturo with an easy smile, is Danse.

Piper’s so happy to see her she starts to cry. She can’t help it - she was never a crier before, but something in pregnancy has flipped a switch for her and now she cries at the drop of a hat. Yesterday she cried because Travis played that Betty Hutton song that made her think of Mac.

Alice’s face is stricken, and then in a moment the other woman has wrapped her arms around Piper. Her hug is warm, her arms strong - it’s clear she’s been working hard since she’s been gone. She smells of sweat and dust, but Piper welcomes it just the the same. 

After a few minutes, Piper begins to feel herself again, and she straightens up, wiping her eyes and trying to find some scrap of her dignity and put it back on. Alice raises one eyebrow above the rim of her sunglasses. 

“I heard about MacCready on our last trip through Goodneighbor. I thought you might have come back here.”

Piper scrubs at one eye with the back of her sleeve and nods, trying to find her voice. 

“Any leads on who did it?” Piper shakes her head, then nods. “One of the Gunners. Big black guy. MacCready kept saying his name before he went into the coma.”

“Barnes,” Alice murmurs. “But we killed him -”

“I guess not,” Piper laughs bitterly, shaking her head. Trying to get ahold of herself.

“I guess not,” Alice echoes, signaling Takahashi for two bowls of noodles.

They slurp together in silence for a few minutes, The sun beats down on Piper’s back. A trickle of sweat works its way between her shoulder blades. It itches but she doesn’t dare scratch - putting her arm behind her back throws her growing stomach into sharp relief and there’s too many people in the market right now. As if the punctuate that thought, there’s a sudden bellow of laughter from John’s Cuts.

When she turns back to her noodles, Alice has put her sunglasses up on her forehead, pushing back her curls, and is watching her. The thought occurs to Piper that this is how she’s seen cats watch vermin, and she turns back to her noodles.

“How far gone are you?” Piper chokes.

“What? Me? I don’t know what you mean? How far wha-” But Alice’s face is steady and she decides it’s stupid to keep pretending like she doesn’t know what’s being asked of her. “Not sure. Doctor Sun can’t quite tell. He says the baby will probably be come sometime in December.” She looks away from Alice, back down at the bowl of noodles in front of her.

Alice nods, slurps some noodles. Sets her spoon in the bowl and then her hand is on Piper’s, giving it a friendly squeeze. “You know I’ve already done this once. If you want any advice or help.”

Despite her despair, a smile works its way across Piper’s face and settles there. For the first time in weeks, she realizes things might just be okay. 

“Thanks.” She’s not going to cry again. She’s not. 

Okay,  _ maybe _ she’s about to cry, but then Danse settles heavily on the stool next to Alice, leaning on the lunch counter and picking up his own spoon. 

“Did you hear about the new General of the Minutemen?” He’s beaming so proudly, Piper knows immediately where this is going. To her credit, Alice starts to blush and pushes her sunglasses back over her eyes as Danse wraps an arm around her shoulders. Piper feels a pang of jealousy and then it’s gone.

“Congratulations,” she chucks Alice lightly on the chin with one loose fist and picks up her spoon again. 

 

* * *

Piper had offered them a place to stay, but Alice had lied and said they’d already booked a room at the Dugout. After booking the room, Alice leads Danse to one of the couches in a corner, where they share a bottle of Bobrov’s Best Moonshine. He’d thought he’d hate it, but the liquor is clear and sweet and goes down relatively easily, and soon a pleasant warmth spreads from Danse’s brain to his toes. With his arm around her, he glances around the room at the people.

Then quietly, so softly he almost can’t hear her, comes Alice’s voice. “Piper is pregnant.”

His heart comes to a crashing halt. He looks down to gauge her expression: she looks calm. Her chin is steady but her eyes avoid his, looking instead at the rowdy group of merc at the bar. 

“I see.” It feels like something is happening here, and he’s not sure what conversation they’re having. 

Alice takes a swig of Bobrov’s wincing a little at the burn from the alcohol. 

He waits for her to say something, but she doesn’t. While he’s usually comfortable with silence, this one feels loaded and he wants to diffuse it, so he starts again.

“Is she...okay with this?”

Alice shakes her head, shrugs, takes another sip of moonshine. She still won’t meet his eyes, and now she leans forward in her seat, elbows on her knees. The air against his chest is cool where moments ago he was warmed by her body curled against his own. Still, she doesn’t speak.

“Are you?”

This time she meets his eyes, but it’s another hit from the bottle and then a minute more before she speaks.

“No. I always wanted more children but after - with the way Shaun is -”

She pauses again, takes another drink. Another wince. 

“I don’t know that I  _ should _ have any more children. And it doesn’t matter, anyway - it’s not like you can father children, right?”

Now it’s Danse’s turn for silence. He’s really not sure, but he’s got an inkling that it’s at least unlikely. And he knows who would know.

Shaun.

She turns away from him, rifling through her bag, and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. She doesn’t smoke often - she must be feeling more upset about this than he realized. She fumbles with the lighter and finally, with it lit, breathes some smoke in before releasing it in a long, slow plume to drift towards the ceiling. 

“Besides,” she starts, gazing off into the crowd and tapping the ash off the cigarette into a discarded bottle she’s pulled from a nearby table. “I still have my firstborn to deal with.” Alice turns back to him, eyes wide and clear. There are no tears this time.

“You still plan to kill him?”

“I’m not sure,” she settles back in against him, her body curled snugly against his chest. “He’s dying. Cancer. Inoperable, and they don’t have a good way to treat it.”

This is the first Danse has heard of this. Since that night on the Prydwen, she’s barely spoken of her son. It makes sense that she would only start now, when she’s had so much to drink. He plays with a curl where it lies on her arm, thumb and forefinger twisting it back and forth idly. 

“Still,” she takes another drag off the cigarette. The smoke lazily drifts around the bar. “He’s done...things that I can’t ever forgive him for. Even if they brought me you.” Danse has the distinct feeling that she’s looking at him now, but he keeps his eyes turned away. 

Maybe it’s his turn now to shut down.

“No matter what though - we have to eliminate the Institute.” She’s definitely looking at him now; he can feel the way her eyes trace the line of his jaw and he shudders a little even as he wonders how any of this can be resolved.

There’s a distant hiss as she drops her cigarette, half-smoked into the beer bottle and it connects with the bit of liquid left in the bottom. 

“Do you want to go for a walk?” 

 

* * *

It’s late, but Preston can’t sleep. Instead he sneaks out of the bed, careful not to wake Pablo, pulling just his pants on and shutting the door behind him with a soft click. He takes two steps down the porch on the tiny shack and sinks his bare toes into the sand. 

The Castle. His mind keeps circling around that old base, the ruined structure just to the south. 

_ Home _ . 

It’s been nice staying at Nordhagen while they get set up, but this was never going to be a permanent place for him; he always knew he would have to move on. They need a home base. Sanctuary is great, but Sturges has things well in hand there, and if the General is serious about moving on the Institute, they’d be better served to be more centrally-located, with fewer settlers and more soldiers.

The ocean before him is dark, invisible waves crashing ever closer to him. His bare chest prickles in the breeze. He takes a long, deep breath; the air smells of salt. 

He spares a thought for Pablo, snoozing inside. The boy is younger than he, exhilarating to be around, and beautiful like a pre-war sculpture. There’s a pang in Preston’s chest as he thinks about leaving him, and another when he considers bringing him. The boy is no fighter - he’d get cut down moments after leaving the beach. 

The General should be back within a couple weeks, Preston reasons, taking another deep breath. That should give him plenty of time to make sure the local militia is armed and ready for any attack the beach might take. He can spend some time building defenses and making sure the crops are doing well and then when they go, he’ll be sure that Pablo and the others will be safe.

The decision made, Preston breathes deeply in the ocean air again and turns to go back inside. Maybe he’ll sleep. Maybe he’ll just start saying goodbye early.

 

* * *

 

It’s late; the streets of Diamond City are quiet except for the hum of the generators and the soft footfalls of the security guards patrolling, their swatters out and ready. The glow of the neon from Valentine’s Detective’s sign illuminates the bare curve of Alice’s ass in his hand as Danse moves against her, inside her, her back pressed up against the wall. He’d known this was what she wanted when they left the Dugout, but there was still something exciting about the idea that someone could walk up and find them like this. 

Her hands are tangled in his hair, her head leaned back, exposing the soft skin of her throat. He wonders if she was always like this, with her husband. For a moment he thinks of the body decomposing at the top of the hill overlooking Sanctuary Hills, and wonders what that man was like.

He wonders what she was like, before. 

Alice’s hands work their way down his body, leaving a wake of flame everywhere that her fingers touch him. She rolls her hips against his, and her breast is full in his hand.

He wonders if he ever had sex with a woman, before. Before he was Danse, when he as M7-97.

It doesn’t matter. She’s the only woman he wants now. But he still wonders.

When he comes, it’s with a groan into her shoulder, and she squeezes her arms around him, forcing his face deep into her neck and the sound into the wall behind her. 

He wonders what he was like, before. 

 

* * *

They sleep in; the Dugout is good for that, because the rooms have no windows and it’s always dark in there. When Alice wakes, it’s with a headache and a dry mouth; Bobrov’s is good for that. Danse, somehow, is already up. In fact, he’s dressed and eaten and packed their bags, and for a moment she’s irritated at his ability to get up and go no matter how much they drank the night before.

But damn if he doesn’t look good, waiting there with her pack ready and a bowl of noodles waiting. He’s even opened some water for her.

She stumbles around the room in a haze, dressing haphazardly, slurping her noodles and drinking her water, and then she looks at him through bleary eyes. 

“We need to stop at Goodneighbor on our way back to Nordhagen,” she tells him, and he nods. He seems distracted this morning. She wonders if it has to do with their talk from the night before. From her admission.

Maybe she’s been too honest.

“I promised Piper I’d check on MacCready for her.”

He nods again.

“Are you upset with me?” This seems to drag him from his distraction. 

“What makes you think that?” Great - now he just sounds irritated. This morning is off to a terrific start, she muses sourly.

“You’re barely speaking to me.”

“It’s just…” He pauses, thinking. “Last night, you told me you might want a baby again. That’s something I can never give you.”

She sighs. In the bar, she can hear The Ink Spots singing about crying and wants to join them.

“I know what I said. But the thing is -” she stands, walks over to the bed, and sits next to him. This close, she can see the flecks of gold in his eyes. She takes one of his hands in her own. “I don’t know what I want. We’re both still trying to figure  _ so _ many things out. You need to find a place in this world and so do I and right now, all I want is to do that with you.” 

He kisses her, his lips firm against her own, as if he’s reminding her that he’s there. After a moment, she breaks away, searching his eyes as if the answers will be inscribed there. Sometimes it feels that way, but today all she sees is her own reflection in his pupils. 

“Let’s just take things one day at a time, okay?”

This earns a nod from him, and then Danse stands, pulling on his pack.

“Let’s go take on the world,” he says, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth, and she knows everything will be okay. 

  
Somehow.


	18. Chapter 18

Fort Independence - The Castle - looms huge on the horizon. Dawn breaks behind it, thin fingers of orange and gold streaking across the indigo sky. Alice and Danse shelter in the husk of an old Sullivan’s down the road from the crumbling stone walls, waiting for Preston and whatever reinforcements he could muster. The morning is cool and this close to the ocean there’s the smell of salt and brine in the light breeze. After the rain last night, the humidity is down - it’ll be a good day for a fight.

The visit to Goodneighbor had been brief - MacCready’s condition held but he’d made no improvements. He’d looked small on his hospital bed, half his face in shadow in the basement of the Memory Den, shunted into a corner like old boxes no one can be bothered to go through. It had been too painful to stay long; no matter the tangle of feelings she has about him, she hates seeing him lying there, still and somehow distant.

Shapes move towards them in the darkness and as they come closer, Alice sits up, Danse’s hand trailing down her back as he reaches for his weapon. Then the shapes turn into Preston and a handful of militiamen, all outfitted in Minutemen gear - historical clothes and iconic tricorne hats. Behind her, she can feel Danse relax, though her muscles stay tense at the thought of the battle to come. 

The small group of men standing before her makes her nervous. They’re not enough, not if what Preston has told her about The Castle and what lurks there is true. 

She doesn’t want to see any more death. 

“Good morning, General,” Preston greets her with a smile, but it’s tight around the the edges. He knows.

“Morning,” she replies, standing slowly and stretching her back. The mines shift in their bag as she moves, and she hesitates, wondering if she’s just fucked them all, then realizes she’s overthinking things. Explosives are new; she’s nervous. 

It occurs to her that she should probably say something to the assembled troops, but she’s at a loss as to what - she’s never been a general before. She’s never had to rally soldiers, except Nate, and the easiest way to do that was -

No. She can’t think about him right now. She can’t think about that. 

“So, General, what’s the plan?” She’s a little hesitant about this General business, but grateful, too, for all the help Preston is giving her to get started.

“What do you guys think? I’m open to suggestions.” The group stands awkwardly, looking at each other in doubt. Finally a young man in the back speaks, his voice breaking in his nervousness. 

“Don’t we just...go in there and shoot the damn things? Pardon my language, General,” he backpedals, skin flushing.

Alice laughs, and then the tension breaks. “I don’t give a shit about your language,” she says, and the rest of the men join in. It’s nice, laughing together before a fight. It makes everything feel more normal. “That’s one option, but it doesn’t give us much of a tactical advantage.”

“We could try a pincer,” another man starts. He’s older, more grizzled-looking - this is a guy who’s used the gun he holds for something other than target practice. Something about him makes her think of a raider, but if that’s what he’s been in the past, it doesn’t matter to her now.

“Yeah,” a third one piggybacks on the idea. “We could go through the breached wall and the south gate at the same time, catch ‘em in the middle.” His voice sounds like old Boston, like home, and it’s a viable option, but it still puts too many of them too close to trouble. 

“May I offer a suggestion?” Danse’s voice comes from behind her, and she steps aside and turns to look at him. His face is calm, but of course it is - he’s a trained soldier. He’s probably best prepared for what lies ahead. 

“Go ahead,” she nods, trying to portray competence, trying to show that Preston wasn’t misguided in choosing her.

Danse gestures past them to the wall of the fort. In the growing light, they can see how it’s broken and crumbling. “We set up a fireline there and draw the hostiles out with our weapons. We’ll need something to drive them to us instead of out to the sea and around or we’ll get caught in the middle.”

“We need bait, you mean?” 

He nods. “Affirmative.” 

She thinks again of the landmines in her bag, and gives a curt nod. “I think that’s the safest approach. It’ll keep everyone from getting caught in the middle.” Around her, she sees the assembled troops nodding. “Preston, take four guys and head over to one side; you -” she points at the man who so clearly was once a raider - “Take the other four and go to the other. Danse, I want you to stay back and cover me.”

“General, what are you do-”

“I’m going to go lay some mines,” she tells Preston with a smile. Project confidence, she tells herself. Don’t let your knees shake. “Let’s get moving,  _ soldier _ .”

 

* * *

Danse keeps his distance - he knows he has a heavy foot and that Alice is better at sneaking. Staying too close to her would be a death sentence for them both, but it doesn’t make watching for a distance any easier. When he looks down the hill, he can see the other guys making their way slowly around the fort to their positions, guns raised. 

He holds the sniper rifle they picked up in Goodneighbor at his shoulder. The heavy suppressor they added to muffle the sound of the bullets firing weighs down the long barrel and he’s a little anxious about firing it with her in danger when he’s only had a day to practice. 

Looking through the scope, he can see her at the far wall, the one previously breached by something huge, carefully arming and laying the frag mines before skipping to a new location and arming another, then another. He picks his head up and looks around the inside of the fort, at the mirelurks clustered in a doorway. So far so good - they haven’t seen her. 

Another mine blinks red and she turns and then everything goes to hell.

 

* * *

 

There first sign Preston has that things have gone sideways is the rumble in the ground. He’s heard of earthquakes before and for one insane minute, his brain tries to figure out if he’s finally experiencing one. Then he wonders if it’s the explosion of a mine, but there’s no boom, no smell of gunpowder, just the rumbling. Then he sees the spray of fresh soil and stone bricks flying through the air, and it dawns on him that it’s started.

“Men!” He shouts to the Minutemen beside him. All four look at each other, back at him, their weapons held hesitantly. “It’s time!” He gestures with his free hand at the gate, then resumes his hold on his laser musket and looks through the gate.

He looks through the sight on his gun, tracking a softshell mirelurk that glows green in the early morning light. It only takes a moment to line up the shot, and when he fires, it collapses in a heap. For all the skills he may not have, he’s still a decent shot, he thinks to himself. 

The first mine goes off, and there’s the improbable sight of crab legs and bits of shell scattering in the sky, the smell of cooked seafood and the burned scent of chemicals. A moment later, as Preston sidles closer to the walls of the fort, he hears the next one go off. 

The monsters come out in force now, dozens of them, full-grown and babies alike. It’s dizzying and makes him feel a little sick to see them all skittering through the gate, but he keeps firing and cranking his weapon, firing and cranking as the other mines go off, as the men around him shoot, and he tries not to think of Quincy.

 

* * *

The thing before Alice is like nothing she’s ever seen before. It reminds her of an old monster flick Nate liked to watch - Gargantua? Something like that. It smells of seawater and death, and it moves so fast she’s barely able to arm the last mine. Instead of placing it, she tosses it over her shoulder and dives clumsily into a stone archway, rolling behind the heavy wall for protection.

The mines go off in a line - one, two, three, four, five, six. There’s an incoherent scream from the other side of the gate - one of the Minutemen? Not the boy - she can’t take the time to look, and she’d have to go past the thing out there to see anyway. Best to just stay put.

She pulls her .44 from her holster and checks the ammo again, as if she didn’t check it before. A full cylinder, just as she had before she placed the first mine. 

When she ducks her head around the corner, she’s not sure what to expect. Despite having caught a glimpse of the monstrosity before she took cover, she’s still astonished. It stands taller than the other mutations, maybe ten or eleven feet, and clicks its left claws menacingly. The right side of its body leaks some sort of dark ichor or blood onto the dirt from the holes where claws used to hang. Alice doesn’t realize she’s staring, transfixed, until a stream of some liquid comes spurting from the creature, a thin toxic-looking rivulet that only misses her face because she dodges back behind the wall.

Her right arm burns, and when she looks down, she can see the fabric of her sleeve has melted away, the skin bubbling angrily beneath it. The leather pauldron on her shoulder smokes where splatters of acid have dripped, and she grits her teeth, trying to determine how serious a problem this is.

 

* * *

The sniper rifle is slow to reload and now that his position has been given away and the battle is in full-force, Danse abandons it in favor of his laser rifle. In the confusion, he’s lost sight of Alice and a traitorous part of him wants nothing more than to find her and ascertain whether she’s safe, even as he knows his primary duty is to dispatch the hostiles. From atop a wall abutting the ocean, he can hear the roar of the tide between bursts of gunfire.

He shakes his head at himself, and takes aim at the massive queen that lurks near the far wall of the fort, clicking and hissing. Firing against the heavy shell of a mirelurk is a sure way to piss it off and waste ammunition, but he has reason to believe Alice is pinned down back there, and he doesn’t know if she can wait for him to make his way down the stairs. So he takes aim at the creature’s broad back and fires a furious barrage into it. 

It takes a moment, but the Queen stops, scuttles back, and turns, lifting its head to look at him. The bitch spits, and Danse flattens himself to the cobbled stone floor and listens as the acid whistles past. He raises his head to fire again at the soft center of the beast and there’s a flutter of movement behind the mirelurk, through the doorway - Alice? - and it causes him enough distraction to miss, forcing him to duck to avoid the Queen’s next attack.

Beneath him, inside the wall, he can hear footsteps echoing off the stonework. He looks back up just in time to see the Queen rock backwards, her legs and claws aflame, and the smell of cooked crab drifting his way through the smoke. The flame streams out for what feels like forever, even after the creature falls, dead, in the center of the courtyard.

A long moment passes after the flames stop and he waits. The Minutemen come straggling through the gate in twos and threes, weapons held loosely and clothes sweaty and askey. Then Alice appears below him, a grin splashed across her face and a flamer on her back.

“Who’s hungry?” She asks the assembled men, and his heart swells.

 

* * *

“I can’t believe we did it!”

“And without losing a single man.”

“No one even got hurt -”

“Well, the General -”

“Yeah, you’re right. But still -”

The voices echo through the halls as Alice sits back, her head against the wall, Danse gingerly cleaning the boils that have sprouted on her arm. She takes another swig from the bottle of whiskey they splashed on her wound - she’ll get better medical treatment when they go back to Goodneighbor to pick up the rest of their gear - and blinks a few times. It feels like he’s rubbing inside her arm with sand, or maybe large pebbles.

“Hold still,” he scolds her. She sticks her tongue out at him. “Not now,” he smiles, tone softening. 

“So what do we do next, Preston?” She turns to face her second-in-command in an attempt to distract herself from the field dressing Danse is doing over her elbow. Her neck is weak - she blames the whiskey - and it takes a few tries to turn her head from where she’s propped it against the cut stone.

“Next we need to build the radio transmitter so that we can communicate with the other settlements. Don’t worry about it, though - I’ve got Harry and Todd working on it, and Lou’s putting the generator together.” Preston pauses, looking at the stone ceiling with a gaze that she identifies as pride. A satisfied smile works its way across her face.

“And dinner?” She prompts him, arching one eyebrow. 

Preston laughs, and Danse puts his hand firmly over her forearm with another admonishment. Pain shoots through the burned area and she tries not to wince. She takes another swig from the bottle.  


“Dinner will be ready soon, General.”

Alice nods. “Good. Can you make sure I get a plate because this -” she holds up the half-empty brown bottle - “can’t be all I have tonight.”

Preston nods and stands. “I’ll see how the boys are doing at the fire.” He crosses the small room and goes through the door, and from her seat she can hear him murmur to himself, “The Castle! I can’t believe it.”

 

* * *

 

MacCready doesn’t so much come to as find himself drifting upwards through a series of waves of consciousness. First he can hear people walking around, talking quietly, although he can’t make out what they’re saying. After an indeterminate amount of time, he begins to be able to understand individual words, like “coma” and “failure to respond” and “persistent vegetative state”. Most of the words have no meaning to him, but the phrase “blood loss” rings a bell. He should know something about that, but the memory is faint and he drifts away from it.

Sometime later - an hour, a day, a week? - he becomes aware of light around him. It’s not that his eyes are open, if he even still has eyes; he can’t seem to  _ see _ anything. Instead, he seems to drift from darkness to light, back and forth, for an indeterminate amount of time. The light seems to come from one place in particular, with smaller points in other directions. Sometimes there’s the sound of a woman weeping.

Who would be crying? He wonders as he drifts. 

After the words and the light comes a sensation -  heat, coming from one side or the other. Heat and a vibration, like breathing. On one memorable occasion, he can feel it surrounding him. 

One day, it occurs to him that perhaps he should open his eyes. He’s sure now that he has eyes. He wonders idly what it might be like to look around, to see what kind of place he’s in. 

There’s a signal from his brain to his eyes - he can feel the electric impulse, somehow - and then his eyes open. At first, all he can see is light and dark and it’s not much different from having his eyes closed. Everything is hazy, indistinct. Eventually, though, he begins to make out shapes: a lamp across a small room, the bricks on the wall. He moves his eyes to the left and looks down at himself: a white sheet, ridged with the shape of his body, and a large brown dog lying next to him. 

_ Dogmeat _ . 

He’s not sure how he knows it, or why, but the thought pops into his head and he knows, suddenly, that this is the dog’s name. The dog lifts its head, looking at him intently, as if it heard his thought. He wonders if he somehow spoke out loud, even though he’s not sure yet if he can move his mouth, or if words are a things he can speak.

Can he speak? He’s not sure.

And he doesn’t need to, because the dog lets out a happy bark, deafening this close to his ear, and then another one. The dog’s stands, tail wagging, and MacCready sees the underside of the dog has been shaved, new hair growing back haphazardly. A series of large scars criss-cross the dog’s abdomen, but then he moves, his face approaching MacCready’s, and that’s when he realizes that he can smell and oh shit, the dog’s breath is awful as he licks MacCready’s face from top to bottom and then up again, tail thumping happily on the bed. 

The dog pulls back and yaps again, but there’s no need - footsteps make their way into the room and then there’s an unfamiliar person moving into view. It takes him a moment, and then he realizes it’s Dr. Amari. He must be in the Memory Den, then?

He feels a certain amount of pleasure in knowing this. It’s surprising, in fact, that he feels so deeply proud of himself. 

  
“Ah, Mr. MacCready. It looks like you’re awake.” 


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry I’ve been so long in posting - I had a medical thing and have been recovering, which means I’m also whacked out on painkillers, so progress is a bit...slower than usual.

There’s something reassuring about being at the Castle these days; there’s the garden growing along one side of the courtyard, where the crops receive the most sunlight. There’s the bustle of the new settlers and militia who come in each day in twos and threes. Preston assigns them to quarters and tasks. The walls are equipped now with artillery, and Danse spends most days training the volunteers. The hum of activity is a welcome distraction from the reality that one day soon Alice will have to head back to the Institute for the last time.

This morning is different; the air is humid, heavy with the late summer storm blowing in from the coast. Though she can’t see outside - the rooms of the Castle don’t have exterior windows - she can tell from the quality of the light that it’s overcast. The stone walls weep with condensation, and Danse’s body against hers is clammy. She can’t sleep in the heat, has never been able to, but there’s something more bothering her. 

When the time comes, will she leave him down there to die? Can she really do that?

She shifts in the bed, knocking the thin sheet off her bare leg, and Danse moves against her in his sleep, murmuring and wrapping a muscled arm around her waist. She takes his hand, looking at it in the dim morning light, tracing the lines and scars on it with a single finger. 

This was not what her life was supposed to be. She and Nate - they had everything. The white picket fence, the cute house, the robot butler, a beautiful baby. Now she never knows where her next meal is coming from, hasn’t showered in...well, it’s a little gross how long it’s been, actually. She fights; she’s killed. She’s become the General of a militia and manages a dozen settlements across Massachusetts. She’s in love with a machine and her son is a mass-murdering slave-trader.

It’s so surreal, and yet somehow she feels more  _ alive _ than she ever imagined when her biggest problem was getting grass stains out of Nate’s baseball jersey.

Was this how he felt on the battlefield? No wonder he was so depressed when he came home on leave.

Danse shifts again, his leg warm against hers, and the heat and firmness of him sends a thrill down her spine. Who knows how long this can last - he’s going to outlive her, barring some sort of accident. When she’s fifty, he’ll still be thirty-five, beautiful and strong and eternal. 

They have no future together. They’ll never be a family. They can never have children.

It makes what she knows she has to do easier, somehow. To know that this is doomed.

He’s waking now, his heart beating faster against her back, his hand gently making circles against her hip. She shivers as his lips meet her shoulder, his breath a spark. He presses against her, his lips working their way to her neck, and her skin comes alive. She turns in the circle of his arms and her hands work their way down his chest.

The future is coming; there’s no avoiding it. But for now she can focus on the present.

 

* * *

 

Learning to walk again in the worst part, MacCready thinks sourly as he sits in the corner, trying to use a fork to feed himself. After months in a coma, Dr. Amari told him it could be some time before he’s able to take care of himself. He can barely use a spoon and now she’s taken that away to have him work with a fork instead, which is more complicated and therefore more frustrating. He can’t even go to the bathroom himself - instead, Amari’s brought in some fucking drifter to help him go to the toilet. 

It’s goddamn embarrassing, is what it is. 

Most of his day is spent thinking; the time he spends re-learning shit a child can do is brief because after an hour of it, he’s completely exhausted. Amari is irritatingly cheerful about all of it, and Mac fantasizes idly of punching her square in the jaw.

Not that he can, of course. He can barely lift his own fucking hand to feed himself. But it’s a nice thought.

He sighs, setting the fork down in frustration. The Salisbury steak he’d finally speared on the end falls off and drops onto the plate in a puddle of brown goop, and he’s so tired he wants to cry. 

He used to be able to do everything - he could eat, he could walk. He lets out a chuckle of irritation. He could shoot the helmet off a raider at a hundred yards just for shits. He could play with his son.

At his feet, Dogmeat lets out a contented sigh. The dog, Amari told him, never left his side except to go outside to relieve himself. Not for months - it laid on the bed with him, or on the floor next to him, or paced around the room. Despite his own injuries, Dogmeat had stayed with MacCready after the attack, ears on alert, ready to defend him.

He has to love the mutt after that. 

As if he can hear MacCready’s thoughts, Dogmeat perks his ears up and looks up at him, tongue hanging out, tail lazily smacking against the floor. Mac relaxes his arm and lets his hand drop down towards the floor, where a cold, wet nose bats into it. Dogmeat rubs against his hand, helping Mac massage his heavy fur. Thinking about it hard, MacCready is able to open and close his hand slowly, rubbing the dog carefully. It takes a while, but at some point he realizes he’s not trying so hard, not thinking about it so carefully.

He reaches out with his other hand, sluggishly making its way across the table before him, and clasps the fork in between his fingers. With a will as strong as iron, he makes his hand raise the fork and work the slice of steak onto the tines, and make its way to his mouth.

He will do this. He _ will _ . And then he’ll make his way back to Diamond City and to Piper.

 

* * *

It’s been a solid week of storms when it happens. It’s hard to hear anything approaching in all the thunder, but there’s a flash of lightning that finally does it - dozens of blank faces are illuminated in the glare, white and lifeless, mounted on humanoid forms and holding laser weapons. 

_ Synths _ .

Danse feels the old revulsion rising inside him and their expressionless faces, even as he sounds the alarm. 

There’s the sound of militiamen scrambling beneath him in the drizzle. He keeps his eyes on the approaching army, listening instead as the Minutemen in the courtyard begin assembling teams, strapping on armor and loading weapons. There’s the distinctive hum, growing louder, as more and more of them arm their laser muskets, and the squelching sound of boots in mud. 

When he turns, it’s because Alice is beside him, fiddling with a strap on her chest piece. 

“What are we dealing with?” Her voice is low. She’s nervous. 

“Looks like synths. I’d put it at a couple hundred, approaching from the southeast,” he gestures, and she squints through the drizzle, nodding. 

“How long do you think till they get close enough to hit with the artillery?”

He shrugs. “Ten, fifteen minutes? I’d wait a little longer though, until we can be sure they’re all that’s coming.”

Her mouth is set into a thin line. Finally, she nods. “Ok. Fire when ready. I’ll be below with the troops.” She turns to go, but he catches her hand, pulling her back to him. 

“What’s going on?”

She meets his eyes briefly, then gestures past him, at the approaching synths. “I’m just...distracted.” A weak smile flits across her face like a moth. “We can talk later.”

“Being with you has made me realize I never want to be alone again,” he tells her, but her hand slips out of his and she’s gone down the stairs before he can wonder what’s happening. 

In the distance, the number of synths seems to grow. Now isn’t the time for distractions, he tells himself. Now is the time to arm themselves and fight. He grabs a cannonball and gets to work.

 

* * *

The fight against the synths is long. It’s nearly eight hours later when the General is finally satisfied that all the attackers have been dispatched, and over ten hours when all their own militia are accounted for. Once the injured have been shuttled off to be cared for and the others delegated to alternately clearing debris and resting, Preston grabs Sturges and meets her in her quarters. 

The General looks more tired than he’s ever seen her - Preston wonders for a moment if the job is proving too much for her, then dismisses that. No one else would have been able to accomplish all she has. Whether it’s good for her or not, it was the right choice for the Commonwealth.

She stands at one end of the room, a dirty glass in her hand, sipping what looks like whiskey. There’s a smear of mud - or blood? He can’t tell - under one eye, and there’s a large scorch mark across the front of her combat armor. Danse, seated next to her, is scowling under his eyebrows. 

What did Preston walk into?

It doesn’t matter, because they both turn to him, and a tight, tired smile makes its way onto the General’s face.

“It’s time,” she tells them, gesturing for Preston and Sturges to take seats. Sturges nods, pulling plans from under his arm as he sits, and after a moment looking between the General and Danse, Preston does as well. 

She sets her glass down with a clunk on the wooden table, a little liquid splashing out. 

“So, how am I doing this?”

Sturges points a grease-stained finger to one corner of the plans he’s drawn up, the paper curling under his hand. Preston can barely see the lines in the dim flickering light of the lantern she’s hung above the table. 

“Well, first you’re going to need to get the rest of us in there at the transporter. You know how to do that?” She nods, and Sturges continues. “Then to start the meltdown, you need to get to this part of the Institute. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that there’ll be plenty of resistance.” 

“Do you know where I can sound the evacuation order?”

Sturges shakes his head. “Best I can figure is the Director’s terminal. Are you -” he clears his throat, “Are you gonna be able to handle that?”

The General stares at the table, not meeting anyone’s eyes. Preston has a distinct, prickling sensation of intruding in someone else’s private pain, but he stays, waiting.

When she looks back up, it’s his eyes she meets, not Danse’s, and not Sturges’, even though he asked the question. The lines of her face are hard and her eyes are clear, if flinty. She reminds him of the porcelain doll his little sister had growing up - hard but brittle. 

“I’m going to have to. So - how soon are we able to move?”

 

* * *

“Hey.” There’s the feeling of something slapping against her cheek. Piper groans, buries her face further in her scratchy pillow. Why won’t the world just leave her alone? All she wants is to sleep.

“Hey!” It comes again, and this time the pillow lifts from under her head, flying away from her and leaving her face to crash down on the pallet beneath her. Piper grunts, forcing her eyes open. 

Nat’s face gradually swims before her, a reflection of her own - small nose, determined eyes, cleft chin. Her little sister’s expression is annoyed. 

“You got visitors,” and then Nat disappears from view, up the ladder to the roof. With a sigh, Piper runs a hand through her hair, her fingers catching tangles before she gives up. She doesn’t even want to know what her face looks like - probably like she’s been asleep for the last three days, which is feels like she has.

She debates putting on better clothes, looks dispiritedly around her little room, and gives up. What she’s wearing will have to do.

Navigating down the ladder is its own delight - with her belly this big, it’s hard to see where she’s putting her feet, and her center of gravity is way off, but she finally makes it to the floor and turns to see Nick and Ellie waiting for her. Ellie wears a slight smile, but then again, she’s much more excited about the coming baby than anyone else. Including Piper.

“Looks like you’re having a little trouble gettin’ around there,” Nick observes.

“Boy, you could be a detective, making observations like that,” Piper snipes back. Nick raises an eyebrow - or what passes for an eyebrow on his face, at any rate. Ellie suppresses a giggle.

“We’ve got some news on your quarry,” Nick continues. Ellie thrusts a file into her hands. Piper takes the papers, flipping through them. Nick’s notes are difficult to read - his handwriting leaves a little to be desired - but she recognizes the photo of Barnes. 

If only she’d been able to get out of the Third Rail sooner - but no, she’s not going to keep beating herself up for this. She might never see MacCready alive again, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t stop Barnes. Somehow.

“We tracked ‘im to a place just north of here. Halluci-Gen Inc. Some sort of pre-war chemical company,” Nick pulls out a pack of smokes, looks at her belly, and then stows them back in a pocket. 

Piper stares down at the photo. Barnes is wearing sunglasses in it, just as he did that night. She can’t see his eyes. She wonders what they look like. 

She wonders what his mother would think of him.

Finally she drags her eyes back up to look at Nick and Ellie. Nick’s face is arranged in a facsimile of concern and for a moment she wonders if this is right. Then she thinks again of MacCready, lying in a white bed in a corner. Eyes closed, barely breathing. 

And she hardens.

“How much for you to kill him?”

Nick and Ellie take a step back simultaneously, as if they were one person. Ellie’s expression shifts to one of sympathetic alarm. Nick pulls the cigarettes out again, slides one from the pack and lights it. There’s a quiet whir from his throat as some fan sucks the smoke in. When it reserves, the smoke pours slowly back out his mouth.

“We don’t do that, Piper. You know that,” his voice is warm. Piper doesn’t care. “You’d have to get  merc to do that.”

“And how the hell am I supposed to do that?” She gestures to her belly, straining against the buttons of her white blouse. “I don’t dare leave Diamond City these days. Where am I supposed to find someone who’ll kill for money?” 

She flings the file on the floor of her home; the papers spill out, photos and notes scattering. 

“I can’t go anywhere, I can’t do anything, and in the meantime, he’s going to get away.” Suddenly she’s tired, so very tired, and she can’t think any more. All she wants is to go back to sleep.

“Just...go,” she tells them, collapsing on her couch, face buried in her hands. 

There’s a click as the door opens, and the sound of feet shuffling out. Then Nick’s voice - “I’ll see what I can do.”

When the door clicks shut, they’re gone, and she’s alone again.

 

* * *

Danse isn’t used to feeling so out of control. He’s used to being calm, measured. He’s used to calling the shots, to knowing what to do. Even since leaving the Brotherhood, he’s been more in charge than he feels watching her check her pouches for ammunition on the first sunny day they’ve had in weeks. 

She’s going in alone. Well, of course she is - initially, at least, the relay will only accept her. Once she’s in, she can bring in the rest of them and he’ll be able to protect her. But until then...she’ll be all by herself. In the Institute. 

An irrational, insane worry tugs at him - that he won’t see her again. That she’s going in and won’t come back. He’s not sure if he’s more worried that she’ll die in there, or that she’ll choose to go down with her son, but he can’t help it - for the first time he can ever remember he’s actually  _ scared _ . 

A synth, scared? He guesses they really did make him human, after all.

Her hands move quickly, packing what she might need. Her grip on her items is steady, firm. Outside, he can hear the militia and the settlers gathering, weapons ready for muster. The time is almost here.

He crosses the room, placing his hands on her shoulders. She pauses, still in his arms, and looks up at him. 

“Yes, Danse?” The eyes that meet his are calm. 

He doesn’t speak; there’s nothing for him to say. It’s clear she’s already gone; she’s away inside herself, somewhere he can’t reach her. When he kisses her, it’s not about her - it’s about him. If there’s a chance she won’t come back, he wants to remember her.

At first she stands, stiffly, in his arms as his hands drift up to her cup her face. When his tongue parts her lips and darts inside, he can feel a flicker inside her, a spark kindled by his fire. One of her hands reaches up to his waist, guiding him closer to her, and she begins to kiss back, her lips pressing against his.

He can’t feel her body under her armor, but he knows what to do about that. Pulling her jacket off is easy; untangling the straps on her leather armor is more difficult, especially without her helping him. She’s too busy trying to work him out of his own clothes, fumbling at the buttons on his shirt and the buckle of his belt. They scramble at each other, panting, impatient.

Finally, he gives up on getting her nude and realizes he’ll have to settle for a single creamy breast and the curve of her hips pressed against him. His fingers trace the folds of her as he pushes her pants down, and her hands are rough against his hardness. He’s inside her - she’s slick but it’s still difficult, standing like this - and he presses her up against the footboard of the bed, rocking into her as she rolls her hips. 

It’s quick, and somehow when it’s over, he feels as distant from her as he felt before. He collapses on the bed, trying to understand why he’s so scared. She buttons her shirt back up, pulls her armor back on, secures her pistol in its holster, all without looking at him. 

There’s a hiss as she zips her jacket back up, and then the sound of her feet approaching him. When he looks back up, she’s staring down at him. Her eyes seem warmer, somehow.

Her lips meet his again, just for a moment. 

“I love you,” she says simply, and then she’s gone to the courtyard.   
Gone to the Institute for the last time. 


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, this is different from the Nuclear Option as shown in-game. I think you'll see why I made the changes I did.

There’s the familiar, unpleasant feeling of being ripped apart by her very molecules, then those same cells and organs sliding through each other back into their correct spots a moment later. The light around her is blinding, all-encompassing, complete. The world is silent and still even as she’s rebuilt within it, and then -

Then Alice is looking at the Institute’s relay. 

It looks the same as always, scuffed in spots with peeling paint and rust bleeding through. Beyond is the relay room, dimly-lit and full of quietly-bustling scientists with clipboards and a synth with a mop bucket. 

A regular day at the Institute. 

She takes a deep breath and steps forward. The holotape to beam in the Minutemen is heavy in her pocket, tapping against her leg. There’s a young woman with a pert nose sitting at the terminal directly in front of her, a bright smile on her face when she sees Alice.

“Well, hello, Mother,” the girl chirps, and Alice freezes.

_ Mother _ . 

“Why - why did you call me that?”

The girl looks confused. “Well, you’re Father’s mother, and since you’re going to be our new Director and you’re just so young, we didn’t think Grandmother would be appropriate. So, we’ve decided to call you Mother.”

In her pocket, her fingers trace the outline of the holotape. It would only take a moment to put it in, but then -

Everyone would die. Everyone in this room, at any rate, and who knows how many other innocents? Even if she sounded the evacuation order -

There would still be a fight first.

She fingers it, carefully, then drops it in the trash can next to the desk. Now there’s only the pulse charge to think of, sitting in her other pocket like a time bomb. She forces a bland smile on her face.

“I see. That’s very sweet, uh…”

“Katie,” the girl supplies, warmly, with a shake of her dark hair. “Katie Nguyen.”

“Katie. Thank you, Katie.” Alice takes a deep breath, licks her dry lips. “Tell me, do you know where Father is?”

A shadow seems to cross Katie’s face. “I believe he’s in his quarters, Mother.”

“Thanks, again, Katie.”

 

* * *

 

It’s been well over an hour since she left when it finally hits Preston - she’s not going to bring them in. She’s gone in alone and won’t be using that holotape at all. 

The very thought makes him furious. He’s suddenly so angry he can’t remember the last time he was so worked up. He slams his fist into the wall, paces back and forth and shouts something incoherent. The men take a step back, their ranks broken, muttering together. 

The General - he can’t even - what if she  _ dies _ ? How will she do it all alone?

That’s when he catches Danse’s eye. The former paladin looks bereft, but his expression is unsurprised. 

“You knew,” Preston spits, turning to Danse. He clenches his fists, debates punching the soldier. “You knew and you didn’t stop her.”

Danse nods, then pauses, shakes his head. “She didn’t say anything. But this - well, this is about what I would have expected from her.” He shrugs his shoulders, leaving his hands raised, palms out, as if asking what Preston expects.

“She’s going to die in there. We don’t even have any way to get in there to follow her.” A morose nod from Danse. “We won’t even know anything for...for days, maybe?”

At this, Danse starts as if coming out of a trance. “I know where to go,” he says, turning and heading back into the fort. He returns moments later with his pack, his laser rifle slung over his shoulder. “I’m going to Goodneighbor.” 

Preston can’t think. This is all too crazy; it’s not what he thought was going to happen. It’s not what was planned. How can Danse go with this?

She’s going to  _ die _ . She’s going to die and this guy is just okay. 

“You coming?” Danse is already halfway to the gate, and Preston gives up. 

“Yeah.” He shoulders his weapon, adjusts his hat, and heads out after the soldier, wondering what the hell is going on. 

 

* * *

“I’m glad to see you again, Mother.” Father’s voice is a shade of what it used to be - still calm and cool, but it’s lost its richness to illness. It makes her sad to hear it. 

Thinking of what might have been - but no. Now isn’t the time for tears.

Alice sits on the side of her son’s deathbed. Father is pale, his eyes watery, his lips peeling. Even his hair seems to have lost its lustrousness - the bright white has faded to a sick-looking yellow. 

“I’m glad to see you, too.” It’s kind to lie to someone who’s dying, her mother once told her. It’s the right thing to do to make them feel safe and loved when the end is close. 

She reaches up to stroke her son’s cheek, and he flinches, moving away from her hand. Her hand drops onto the blanket, useless, unwanted.

“I see,” she says. 

“I’m sorry,” he tries, his voice quavering. “It’s just...I’ve never liked to be touched.”

_ But you did _ , she wants to cry, thinking of how he would sleep on her chest, his skin against hers, his tiny sweet breaths in her ear, all through the night. When he was a newborn, that was the only way he would sleep, if he was touching his mama. 

Instead, though, she takes her lost hand in the other and holds it, as if this will keep her fingers still.

“I can’t stay here,” she says, finally. Her voice sounds uncertain in her own ears. She wants to get up, to walk around, to run away, but she forces herself to stay sitting at his bed, to look at her son’s face.

Where she expected an expression of disappointment or loss, there’s only resignation.

“You won’t succeed me as Director, then? A pity.” His fingers pluck at a tear in the blanket. They’re so skinny. It hurts her heart.

“It’s not just that - “ Now she does stand. She paces, anxiety coursing through her veins like Psycho. “I need to shut this place down. I need...I need the Institute gone.”

His eyes are guarded. “The Railroad got to you.”

“It’s not the damn Railroad, Shaun, it’s you!” Her voice is louder than she expected, more strident. “It’s everything you’re doing down here. Kidnapping people? Killing them, and replacing them with copies? What did you expect me to do with this? How could you...after what happened to me, to your father? How could you do something like that?”

There’s no regret in his face, though. No doubt. His gaze is steady, if weak. 

“I assume it’s too late for you to change your mind?”

She nods, resolute. “It is. I plan to sound the evacuation order and then blow this place up. It’s -” her voice catches and she stops to take a deep breath and swallow. “It’s not too late. I could take you with me.”

The laugh that comes from him is more of a wheeze. “You’ll doom humanity, you know that?”

And just like that, she knows the truth. He’s too far gone - her son is no longer her son, but a product of the Institute. He’ll never see the truth of what he’s done. 

_ You’d be amazed what people will do when their back is against the wall. _

The sound of Nate’s voice is clear in her ears, but he’s been dead for so long. She clenches her hands into fists again, and lets them go. It would be so easy to stop, to let things continue as they have been. Instead, she turns to his terminal. The evacuation code is easy to find, and in moments, it’s blaring through the building, telling everyone to evacuate. Lights begin going off and on, and for a moment all she can think of is the vault, of waking up in a frozen hole in the ground full of corpses.

“There’s nothing else to say,” her son sighs grumpily. 

She has to try one more time. Even if he won’t go with her -

He’s still her son. 

“Shaun, I’m so sorry that it’s come to this,” she tries, blinking. Somehow her vision has become blurry, but then she realizes it’s just tears. 

“It’s too late to be sorry,” he hisses, turning over in his bed. 

Alice takes a step back, blinking, tears streaming down her cheeks. Trying to figure out how it’s come to this. She reaches a hand forward and sets it on his shoulder.

Somehow, for some reason, he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t shake her off. After a minute, one of his hands slithers up though the blankets and sits on top of hers. His skin is papery, thin. She can see the blue veins inside, crossing each other like roads on a map. 

Around them, below and in the distance is the panicked sound of people and synths making their way to the relay. But instead of the hissing flare of laser weapons, everyone sounds reasonably calm, and the footsteps are hurried but orderly. There’s no need to wonder what it would have been like if she had brought an army down here.

She’s not sure how long they sit like that when she realizes that he breathed out and hasn’t breathed back in. She’s not even sure how long it’s been since he took a breath, but his chest is still and his hand is growing colder.

When she looks down at his face, it’s peaceful, with none of the urgency it always seemed to have in life. His brows are relaxed, his lips slightly parted as if he’s waiting to take another breath. 

Finally, Alice works her hand free from his grip and leans down, placing a kiss on her son’s still, sunken cheek. 

The last kiss.

“I’ll be back soon,” she murmurs, closing the door to his quarters behind her.

 

* * *

 

The walk through the Institute to the reactor is eerie, quiet except for the evacuation announcement and the rushing sound of the water in the atrium. It’s hard to believe that in an hour, all this will be rubble. For a moment, she wonders if maybe it would be better to open this place up, to allow people to colonize it and live here, safe from the troubles of the wasteland.

But it’s the right thing; she knows this. 

This was an experiment, Father once told her. But she was the one who realized it was a failure; no one can be trusted with this technology. 

He was too close to it.

And so she walks through Advanced Systems, through the offices and testing rooms, through the sliding doors and the narrow, dark hallways that lead to the reactor. In one room is a gen-2 synth in shut-down mode, head hanging and weapon at its side. In the next are two, and in the cavernous reactor room are a dozen, possibly more.

There’s the quiet tick of her geiger counter on her arm, but she can barely hear it through the buzzing of the alarms and the beeping of the laser turrets above. The password is easy enough to find, on the person of one of the deactivated gen-2s. From there, it’s alarmingly easy to open the reactor and place the charge inside. 

She takes her time walking back to Father’s quarters. There’s no need to rush, not with everyone gone, not with the whole place to herself. She can take some time to really appreciate the beauty of the atrium, the cleanliness of the cool glass everywhere. 

It’s a shame it’ll all be destroyed, but -

No. She can’t think that way. 

When she reaches Father’s quarters, everything is the same as she left it. He’s still in his bed, under the white blankets, with his back to the door. He’s still unnaturally quiet. He’s still dead.

The only thing that’s different is the child sitting in the chair by Father’s bed, hands on his knees. Patient.

_ Shaun _ .

Her heart leaps even as she knows this creature is nothing more than a synthetic version of the child she lost. He still has Nate’s dark hair and olive skin. He still smiles when she walks in the door and leaps to his feet.

“Mom!” He still cries, his arms wrapping around her waist.

She still finds tears springing to her eyes.

“I knew you wouldn’t leave me here,” he looks up at her, and she marvels at the perfection of him. He looks like the boy she was meant to have, the one who was supposed to enjoy playing soccer in the park and would ask each year for a puppy. 

“What do you mean?” She has to fight to sound clear, blinking back tears again. The synth lets go of her and smiles, guileless. 

“Everyone was leaving, but I knew you wouldn’t leave without me. I wanted to wait for you, so we could leave together.”

There’s a fluttering in her stomach, something she hasn’t felt in months, since she discovered the truth. Looking down at his clear gray eyes, she wonders -

No. This is where she’s meant to be. This has always been where her story is meant to end.

“I’d really like to go with you, Shaun, but you need to get topside. There’s…” she pauses, looking at the body of her son under its blanket. “There’s some things I need to finish up here first.”

Synthetic or not, child or not, the boy clearly knows something’s up. He gives her the most skeptical look she’s ever seen. Shaun takes one of her hands in his and tugs, pulling her towards the door. 

“Mom, we gotta go,” he begs, pointing to the stairs. “We gotta get out of here before something bad happens.”

But she’s so tired. If she goes back to the surface, there’ll be questions, and plans to make, and settlements to manage, and Danse. He’ll want to know what happened and she doesn’t know if she can handle telling him about everything she’s lost down here. 

Up there she has no future. Down here she’ll finally be able to rest.

Alice sinks into the seat Shaun occupied just a moment ago, trying to think.

“I can’t, Shaun,” she finally says. He drops her hand. 

“You’re not going?” His face is the picture of disappointment. 

She’s missed out on so much in this life.

“No. I can’t.”

There’s a scraping noise as he pulls the swivel chair from the terminal over and sits next to her. He takes her hand again, lacing his fingers between hers. His grip is warm, his fingers larger than she would have expected.

“Well then I’m staying too.”

She turns and for the first time really studies his face. A straight nose, a little too big for his features, and growing a bit of a hook in it at the tip. Olive skin and her pale eyes, turned up at the corners and fringed with long, dark lashes. Thick hair cut short but with a hint of a curl. 

He doesn’t feel synthetic to her.

“You should go,” she says to him, but even she can hear how her voice lacks conviction.

“Nuh-uh,” he says, gripping her hand tighter. “If you’re staying, I’m staying. I don’t want to live with them. I’m ten years old. It’s time I got to know my mom.”

That’s when something inside her breaks. 

It would be easy to stay here, to press the detonator, to wait for the pain and the fire. It would be easy to give up, to finally let herself rest.

But she owes him more than that. She owes it to Nate not to give up; she owes it to Danse to come back. She owes it to Preston and to Piper to help them with the Minutemen and the baby. She can’t die down here in this hole, no matter how tired she is.

The future that waits above may not be the one she wanted, but it’s the one she has.

She gives Shaun’s hand a squeeze and stands. 

“Alright then. Let’s go.”

 

* * *

The road to Goodneighbor is the same as always: crawling with super mutants and raiders, and the two of them have to take a detour around Faneuil Hall because of the beeping of a nuke that they can’t locate. It takes them most of the day, but eventually, Danse and Preston make it through the gate and into the armpit of the Commonwealth.

They debate going into the Third Rail but end up purchasing a bottle of whiskey from Daisy instead and settle on a bench near the gate, waiting for news.

Danse isn’t entirely sure what they’re waiting for, or how long they’ll be waiting. The best thing he could come up with was to get them to a major settlement and wait for news. So he sits on the bench and takes a sip of whiskey and hands the bottle to Preston, who does the same.

They’ve been there for nearly three hours, silent but for the sound of the bottle being passed back and forth, when there’s the familiar sound of a woman humming. He looks up suddenly, calling out to the woman leaving Daisy’s. 

“Yes? Oh! You’re MacCready’s friend, yes?” Danse looks up at her, trying to remember why he knows her, and then it hits him - this is the woman who works in the Memory Den. The doctor who worked with the Railroad. 

It’s too complicated to share his personal feelings about the mercenary, so Danse nods. “Yes, you could say that.”

Amari nods. “You know, he’s awake if you’d like to come see him. I was just going to head back in a moment.” She’s still watching him carefully, her lips pursed like she’s thinking. 

Danse nods again. “We’re waiting for someone but -”

“You go,” Preston interjects. “I’ll stay here and wait.”

“Come with me,” Amari says, setting off around the corner. Danse follows, puzzling over her voice in his head. 

There’s something more here. If only he could wrap his mind around it.

 

* * *

The top of the Mass Fusion building was the best place she could think to send them. It’s close to Goodneighbor - they can get a room after and start back towards the Castle tomorrow. It has the best view of the Commonwealth.

All the better to watch a nuclear blast destroy your son’s life’s work, right?

Alice runs her thumb over the detonator button, careful not to depress it. A tiny voice in her head tells her it’s not too late - she can still go back down there. She can leave Shaun here and go back into that hole and die with her son the way she was supposed to, the way she should have died with Nate sixty years ago in the vault. 

_ Till death do us part. _

Up this high, the breeze is strong and cool. It blows a curl over her eyes and she shakes it free, catching sight of Shaun again. 

No, she can’t go back down there. She can’t put herself in that hole to die. 

She has a reason to be here.   
She presses the button.


	21. Epilogue

**Christmas, 2290**

As usual, Piper knows he’s back before the door opens. Dogmeat gets up, walks in a circle with his tail hung low, and lets out two happy barks, nose pressed against the door. Then there’s the sound of boots knocking against the wall outside, the door to Home Plate swings open and Mac walks in, knocking the last of the snow off his boots. 

She looks at him over the top of her terminal and smiles, then puts a finger to her lips, pointing up. Mac grabs the dog and kneels, rubbing and shushing him. From upstairs come the quiet snores of sleeping children. 

Mac pats the dog a last time and walks over to her slowly - she can see from the stiff way he moves that there’s something wrong with his back, or maybe his shoulder. It doesn’t stop him from putting his arms around her, though, giving her a gentle squeeze. She winces, trying to find a good position for her belly, then gives up and settles for brushing his cheek with a kiss instead.

“Is it done?” He nods, smiling slightly. From the corner, the radio crackles and then a new song starts, the piano chirpy and the refrain cheerful.  _ Uranium Fever _ again. 

“Yeah,” Mac sits, pulls his hat off and puts it on the table next to the couch. Piper looks wistfully back at her terminal, then decides it won’t hurt to take a break. She sits down on the couch next to him, close enough that their legs touch. Even now, after three years, she gets a thrill down her spine at the feeling of his leg against hers. He rests his arm on the back of the couch and she strokes it gently with one finger.

“I can’t believe they’re going all the way up there,” she lets out a small shiver. 

“Jealous?” His smile is kind. His eyes flick down to the swell of her belly, then back up to meet hers. The creases around them make her melt a little. 

“Maybe a little,” she admits with a laugh.

“Just a little?”

“Ok, a lot. I just can’t believe there’s a whole colony of synths up there.” She sighs. “I’d love to see it.”

“Someday we’ll go visit,” he promises. When he leans in to kiss her, she feels that tingle down her spine again. His lips against hers are warm, insistent, and she kisses him back, leaning into him as well as she can over her tummy. 

“Mmmm, Piper -” he’s moaning into her mouth when they hear a giggle from the stairs. The two of them jump apart like teenagers and look over.

Duncan and Shaun stand together, giggling. Behind them, she can hear a third set of small feet making their way down the stairs, and then Hope’s dark head appears between the two of them. 

“What’re they doing?” Her voice is scratchy from sleep. Piper feels her cheeks flush red. 

“They’re  _ kissing _ ,” Duncan answers his little sister while Shaun makes a retching noise.

“Eeeeew,” all three groan before collapsing again into giggles. 

“You better be back in bed by the time I count to three.” Piper picks up a teddy bear from the couch and chucks it at them and they scatter like radroaches. There’s the sound of children rambunctiously climbing the stairs to the loft, but when she looks back over, Shaun is still standing there, his face serious. 

“Did my mom and Mr. Valentine get off okay?” Piper nods, wondering if he’ll ask about Danse. 

“Sure did, buddy,” Mac cuts in. Piper gestures for him to wait.

“And...what about, you know. My dad?” 

“He went with them too.” Piper isn’t sure if it’s the pregnancy or if she’s just going soft, but hearing Shaun refer to Danse as his father makes her a bit misty. 

Shaun nods. “Is Aunt Nat still coming over tomorrow?”

Piper smiles. “She is. And I think she has something special for you for Christmas.”

The boy perks up at this. “Alright!”

“Now I think it’s way past time for bed,” Mac gets up off the couch and walks over the boy, scooping him up in his arms. Shaun lets out a laugh. “Why don’t you head upstairs? Tomorrow’s going to be a big day!”

Mac disappears up the stairs with the children and for several minutes there’s gales of laughter and whispering. Piper thinks for a moment about getting up and continuing her article, but her feet are up and for once the baby isn’t sitting on her bladder, so she rubs her hand across her belly and picks up a Grognak comic off the table while she waits.

Eventually, the light goes out and Mac makes his way quietly back down the stairs and across the room to sit beside her on the couch once more. Across the room, Dogmeat rolls over on his back and wiggles happily, staring at them upside down with his tongue hanging out of his mouth.   
“Where were we?” She drops the magazine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, folks. The end. 
> 
> (Obviously I have some ideas for a sequel, but I'm not sure if there's enough there - or enough interest - for another part. Let me know if you feel differently).

**Author's Note:**

> Please be aware in this and future chapters that sometimes I make changes for better storytelling effect, and sometimes it's because I believe the in-game source may be considered unreliable and the "truth" may be somewhat different. Please enjoy, and leave feedback.


End file.
